


The 7th A.C.T.

by honey_bug



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Action, Action & Romance, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blood, Blood and Violence, Drama, Emotional Baggage, Everyone Is Alive, F/M, Fairy Tail inspired to be honessttt, Frisk (Undertale) Uses Sign Language, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Light Angst, Lots of fight scenes, Mages, Magic, Magic and Science, Magic violence, Magic-Users, Mute Frisk (Undertale), No Smut, Nonbinary Frisk (Undertale), OC death, Overdosing, Paparazzi, Plot, Plot Twists, Post-Undertale Pacifist Route, Reader Is Not Frisk (Undertale), Reader-Insert, Sad with a Happy Ending, Self-Harm, Slow Burn, Slow Romance, Slow To Update, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Teacher Toriel (Undertale), Toriel and Asgore are divorced, Undertale Monsters on the Surface, Violence, Wandless Magic, also Avatar the last airbender ideas up in here, also occasional art from author herself!, angst is rare and light, does anyone even read these, i'll be real the updates are gonna be totally random, its fine dont think about it too much we're cool we're chill, magic tournament, music in every chapter!, papyrus is YOUR biggest fan how about that twist huh, reader has an elaborate backstory, reader will have a great time, the happy fic where no one has to die!, the reader is just an oc at this point get used to itttt, the whole fic isnt sad we just gotta b sad sometiems to enjoy the happy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-17
Updated: 2019-07-19
Packaged: 2019-08-25 00:22:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 26,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16650727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honey_bug/pseuds/honey_bug
Summary: The year was 20XX. Monsters had been on the surface for a few years now and things were going smoothly. Mages, Monsters, and Humans lived in (mostly) harmony and life was peaceful...Well, for everyone but you that is. You were just a broke student trying to stay afloat, but you were sinking fast. Lucky for you, that's where magic comes in.The Arcana Core Tournament was just what you needed: An international contest of magic and prowess that only selected mages got to take part in for money, glory, and the secrets of the universe (probably).You certainly didn't expect to do well in it, nor did you expect to have a few adoring monster fans cheering from the sidelines. Magic celebrity life was not what you signed up for, but maybe making some friends would be nice.





	1. The Arcana Core Tournament

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Mercy](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14479695) by [earthvibes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/earthvibes/pseuds/earthvibes). 



> I'm not sure how much I like this but I've really wanted to write a magic tournament style fic for a while. Deltarune got me back into Undertale and I've read a lot of fics lately that have such great writing I really wanted to make something too! I hope yall like it! 
> 
> ALSO: Theres a bunch of works that inspired me to write this, but most notable is Mercy by earthvibes! I just really love their writing and the idea of a mage community on Earth. I did a completely different take on it though because like I've said I really wanted to do a magic tournament fic and the idea of mages in Undertale is just a super cool concept! Go give it a read, its super good!
> 
> Updates will be sporadic at best but if people like it it'll encourage me to write more. 
> 
> IMPORTANT: Every chapter is going to have its own playlist! Rather than link it in the notes, the songs will be scattered throughout the chapter in links! (so you don't spoil yourself on songs in a playlist and they can all play at the appropriate time!) If any words are underlined it means that a song should start playing and there's a link attached!

[“Ladies, Gentlemen and all assorted others...](https://youtu.be/m6kb96YWXMA)welcome...to the Arcana Core Tournament! This marks the 7th tournament since the games founding! This is a significant number for mages as I'm sure you all know…”

The enthusiastic host continued with his explanation over the fanfare of the tournament’s theme while you slowly tuned out the TV. You tried to edit some essays for classes but found your thoughts drifting.

The 7th ACT...the significance wasn't lost on you. Mages believed in the power of numbers, and the biggest belief of all was in the casting power of seven. Any true, formidable spell is cast by seven mages or it has no chance of lasting the test of time. The spell put on mount Ebott is the clearest example of this...and perhaps the most damaging. You winced at the thought.

The 7th Arcana Tournament was believed to be the most holy: that the results of the tournament could change life on Earth itself. Perhaps humanity would be blessed in luck...or perhaps a new leader would be revealed through the strife of the challenges presented. You hoped that maybe it would help put mages in a better light after the mess of mount Ebott.

Monsters had escaped from their mage-made prison on Ebott just a few years ago. While the process was arduous and grating, as anything dealing with human government usually is, they managed to integrate into society well.

You clicked over to Twitter to one of your favorite accounts: “Peeps of Lumos” @peoplewatchinglumos. On it featured strangers living their lives: moms with children, business monsters on their way to work, mages casually levitating their coffee while they walked. Where you lived in Lumos, the capital of the continent, you had personally seen the dramatic population change over the years and nothing had made you happier. Ebott wasn’t the only colony of monsters trapped underground, though it was the first and the one with the seal that happened to span all of the underground. When the seal broke the entire world changed into a diverse pool of monsters, humans, and mages. What a time to be alive.

Earth in the year 20XX was doing well for itself...but that doesn't mean there weren't problems. The biggest often revolving around magic. You don't blame monsters being worried about human mages after escaping the underground, if you were in their shoes you'd likely feel the same...but there really wasn't anything anyone could do to compensate for that pain. Modern mages had long since forgotten such events had transpired until monsters appeared on the surface. Some, such as you, who were in touch with the Old Knowledge knew of a war...but the location of such a barrier had been long since lost to time. Others had even gone looking for the barrier, but had never managed to actually find the thing. Supposedly the site where it was broken still had faint remnants of ancient magic there...but you couldn't imagine going. The thought of being in such a place sent shivers down your spine. You quickly pushed she thought away.

Regardless, you felt guilt over it. As a mage, you held responsibility for your magic as well as others. Human mages were by all means a minority in the world, their numbers shrinking every year. You were always taught, as you assumed every other mage had been, that magic was a precious gift to be used only for good. If you were to see someone using it wrongly, it was your duty as someone with magic to defend those without it and police other magic users to behave. You didn’t like the idea that someone didn’t stop the war all those years ago, or that someone didn’t at least stop the mages from forming the barrier. Either way, the damage had been done, and mages in the present now had to live knowing their own kind had done that.

You sighed clicked off the laptop, fully giving up on doing any work. You glanced at the TV where the announcer, who you assumed to be a mage, was continuing his explanations for the non-mage audiences. This was around the 3rd announcement this week on the games, and every time the explanations were given again in case the audience was unaware.

Perhaps that’s why the Grand Magic Council had chosen now to initiate the Arcana Tournament, you considered. They only came once every 300 years or so and had always brought mages and humans together.

Maybe they’d bring mages and monsters together again too?

[“...but that’s enough of that! What’s on everyone’s minds today is just who will be this games participants?”](https://youtu.be/2d-sKJ7Pnxo)

You jumped up in attention, this is what you had been waiting for.

“As usual, the Arcana Core Tournament features 100 participants. From these, the competition is whittled down the the final 7 who will be crowned as this tournaments Cor Magi. These 7 magi will be recognized as the most determined, brave, resourceful, intelligent, persevering and talented mages of the era! Aside from having that esteemed title and respect, they will be given offers of employment from within the Grand Magic Council, the secret and prestigious mage government…”

But of course the host doesn’t mention the less glorious prizes, you snort. Just managing to get in nets you a cash prize that was sure to get you through your masters and PhD without having to get several jobs to stay afloat...THAT was pretty special to you at least. Not to mention that they often offered special mage artifacts, ancient knowledge and even favors to competitors who scored high enough. Such things were kept under tight wraps but the rumors lived on. You didn’t doubt such things happened, but rather wondered what previous competitors had asked for.

A common mage such as you didn’t live past the average human lifespan, but a bloodline mage who was almost pure magic often lived hundreds of years depending on how powerful they were and how powerful their ancestors. Since games were held 300 years apart at least, only a few mages lived to see more than one. And of those, only those in the Grand Magic Council had lived to see several since they are the cream of the magic crop, all having been former competitors.

“...the rules for eligibility are simple: They must possess magic, they must be registered under their True Name, and they must be between the ages of 18 and 50. The Council looks at all registered beings and decides among them who the best competitors are. These chosen few have been notified of their status and had until today, at the time of this announcement, to confirm their desire to compete.”

You glanced at the golden letter on the coffee table in front of you, it’s words seemingly glowing in the light of the TV. When you got the news a week ago you had cried, this was huge news for someone like you! You never thought your magic had been impressive but somehow the council had found you important enough to join the events. You wrung your hands together, it was an impressive task you were about to take on.

“Here are all 100 confirmed mages to participate in the Tourney! Alicia Harrow of Burrow, Ava Noir of Noxvilla…”

Names flooded the screen to the announcer’s right as he carefully listed every mage and their residence. When yours came you found your heart fluttering in excitement but quickly recovered. It’s official now...you’re in this for real. And that means you have to study the competition. You did your best to memorize the names flooded on the screen, some of them were easier than others. Many you recognized as prominent figures in the magical community: athletes, celebrities, lower tier government workers and defense mages. You had to admit, it was a lot to take in. How were you gonna stand a chance against these guys?

You leaned back against your couch and stared at the cracked ceiling of your apartment. This whole place was all you could afford in this damn city and you were gonna lose it fast if you didn’t go through with this. You were all you had in this world...and this was what you had to do to survive.

You felt Determined.


	2. The First Encounter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow people really seem to like this so i went ahead and worked on the draft i had goin! i hope yall like it!! :D 
> 
> UPDATE: i drew a little sketch to go with this chapter! I'm gonna post it at the end of the chapter and from now on will do the same with any art i decide to draw for fics!

A month passes. 

 

[“woah paps,](https://youtu.be/Lb060C2_1JQ) sittin too close to the T.V. aint healthy.” Papyrus leaned back against the couch and pumped his fists excitedly in the air towards the screen.

 

“I KNOW, I’M JUST SO EXCITED FOR THE NEXT MATCH, IT’S SUPPOSED TO BE STARTING SOON!”

 

“heh, hope you can keep that ‘citement of yours under _control_ ,” sans replies with a grin while tossing the remote on Papyrus’ lap. It seemed his brother was too excited to care about the horrible pun his brother had made, that always caught Sans off guard.

 

Those magic games or whatever had started recently and people seemed to really be getting invested, especially Undyne who had hooked Papyrus shortly after. While the whole idea made Sans a bit nervous ( I mean magic was a dangerous thing wasn’t itt?) everyone he knew seemed to absolutely love it. Even Tori tolerated it so Frisk could watch with Paps (suprivised of course, in case it got too violent) but Sans just _knew_ she actually loved it as much as the others.

 

What got Sans the most though was Pap’s interest in a specific contestant. He couldn’t remember her name…. _I mean there was like 100 people competing to start with that's a lot of names…_

 

But he did remember what everyone was calling her.

 

_“Athena”_

 

He knew it came from one of the old human stories about a goddess of wisdom, but other than that he didn’t know too much. He really wasn't even sure where the name had sprung up from - one day when your face had appeared on the TV in an interview the nickname had appeared beside it. He assumed that maybe mages online had coined it after seeing your stats, or maybe it was a tradition.

 

Either way. Athena had captured Pap’s attention, along with eventually everyone else in their little monster family.

 

You were just a student, just trying to get by while getting your education. You didn’t have a grand story like the others did, of some lineage you had to fight for or a destiny to fulfill. You didn’t even seem to want the glory that came with the title. That part had really stood out to him, and apparently to other people too. You started getting called “The Wisdom Witch”, “The Studious Sorcerer”, and “The Academic Artifice”. Personally all a mouthful, so typically Athena had been the most common aside from _‘that kid’_.

 

And you did look like a kid to him. Well, younger than everyone else there at least. You didn’t give your age in the interview but he knew from the rules you were an adult….and you said you were going to apply for your masters after this...you had to be at least 22 if not older right? But what really threw him off was that you were so young compared to the older, seemingly more grizzled opponents you would have to face in the near future. There were only a few opponents younger than you and some had already been disqualified.

 

The way the matches worked was weird to him to say the least. It looked nothing like the Encounters between monsters, but he supposed to was similar to the Encounters he had seen with Frisk. The SOUL came out of opponents in a fight where magic was involved, but it stayed practically glued to their chests. The person’s individual body movement was what kept the soul out of danger, but as he had seen in the competition so far even hits to the physical body damaged the SOUL, just not as much as a direct hit did.

 

The games announcer always said that the magic in the arena was regulated to be non-lethal but he saw online that plenty of mages speculated it could be possible regardless. There were just too many kinds of magic and too many possibilities.

 

Each contestant signed a waiver saying they were ok with the risk involved in the tourney...Sans wondered for a moment what life must be like for you to consider something so dangerous...if you really were just a broke student.

 

You must be havin it really rough he thought while scratching his skull idly.

 

But either way, the magic...human magic was fascinating. And terrifying. He knew that the kid...that Frisk's magic was special and powerful, some kind of Time or Universe magic from what he could understand, but to know that the kid wasn't alone in that power? **Yikes**.

 

All human mages had their own specialisation. Bloodline mages who had more “magic” in their SOULs and blood were more likely to be able to do higher level magics (like Time magic) while common mages like you typically seemed to do the basics (the elements for example).

 

Almost all magics are capable of being learned by anyone...but that doesn't mean they'll be good at it. A few powerful magics are ‘locked’ behind bloodlines, only those with relatives able to do such magic are able to replicate it. That was at least his understanding from what the announcer had explained (as well as mages online). It seemed like lots of magics had been lost to time since magic was ultimately a fickle and often recessive gene. The population dwindled in comparison to non mages and now monsters. He thought that eventually those bloodline mages would end up extinct...that maybe human magic itself would be extinct.

 

But for now it wasn't. And for now, it was being broadcast loudly to the entire world.

 

Each match was kept hidden from the chosen contestants until 2 weeks beforehand. They'd both be given an idea of the randomized terrain the arena would transform into as well as who their opponent was with all their registered information in case they were unfamiliar with them (stats and usually what magic they are specialized in). Before the match starts, a coin is flipped and whoever loses the shot gets to pick their magic first - a disadvantage since you cannot switch afterwards and gives the opponent an opportunity to switch magics before the match to gain the upper hand.

 

The special thing about the games is any kind of magic can be used if it's declared before the match, even if it's not the mages specialization or on the registered list. Ideally the 2 weeks could be spent learned a new magic and then surprising your opponent, but if they have a lifetime of experience it may not be worth it. It tests not only strategy and planning, but the ability to sense your opponents, to train and study and finally...to fight.

 

He remembered seeing your first match, the thing that had gotten Paps obsessed with you. Before seeing a match Sans believed the whole concept of the games was rather...well, below him. He’d seen some shit in the underground, his family and friends...they had all gone through hell. He knew what human magic was like and he wasn’t interested in seeing more of it.

 

But god, you had certainly changed his mind on that. He only humored Paps when he seemed hell-bent on showing his brother the ‘amazing fight’ he witnessed at Undyne’s earlier that day (the fight in question Sans had personally missed since he had been napping). Sans went along with it, he’d watch a dumb human magic fight if it made his bro happy. Paps pushed his phone into his brothers hands and pressed play on the YouTube vid titled **[ARCANA TOURNEY - Athena VERSUS Noir FULL FIGHT]**.

 

The arena field itself was the size of a football field, with maybe nearly 100,000 humans, mages and monsters filling the stands in a colorful splatter in the background. You stood at one end of the field, the ground almost completely flat,  barren dirt aside from some rocks here and there. On the other end stood your opponent, her dark hair covering her face and black runes entirely circling her left arm like tattoos. He thought he could see them shift and move. Both of you stood in the required basic uniform: tailored tunics with the logo for the games printed on the front right corner with your respective names on the back. The announcer said a few words and in a flash, he heard a noise akin to a gunshot before a magic barrier was dropped between the crowd and the contestants, translucent but giving off an ethereal shimmer. Your souls were pulled out of your chests, hers was a bright orange and yours

 

a bright red.

 

[The music began](https://youtu.be/gDvq9USBbUA) and your opponent began a mad dash forward towards you. Surprisingly you stayed still, eyes watchful but not budging until she reached her right hand over the runes on the left arm. Suddenly you threw out your right hand and shouted a word he didn’t quite catch. A small barrier instantly formed right in front of her face but not the rest of her body. She realized but not soon enough to stop running, causing her to bump her head into it. She caught herself before falling completely backwards on the ground, crouching and visibly angry underneath her bangs and mess of hair in front of her face. As soon as she had fallen you snapped up the same hand and the barrier disappeared.

 

In a little black box just to the right of you, and another just on the left of Noir, held the stats relevant to the fight:

 

HP and MP

 

Your HP was honestly worrying….15? Out of 99 possible? He had expected you to have most of your stats in HP and defense, but it seems like that wasn’t the case. Your defense wasn’t listed there but he found out later it was only around 5 of possible 99. Jeez.

 

Your MP was far better, you had 50 total and that quick barrier spell had only cost you 5 to cast.

 

Noir quickly sprung up and touched her arm again to cast, this time keeping eye contact with you without moving until the spell was done. It took him a second to realize, you had thrown the barrier for the sole purpose of throwing her off her spell casting. The box beside her showed that her magic had gone down from 30 total MP to 15 because she had been interrupted in the cast and had to do it twice. Smart. If MP ran out during the battle it wasn’t necessarily game over, but it could make it infinitely easier to win. Her arm after a few seconds turned completely black with runes, shifting and conforming into large shimmering blade.

 

And that's where it started to go downhill. He missed the declaration of magic before the fight since the video didn’t show it, but he knew by now that your magic for this fight was Protectives and hers was Transformation, and because you didn't have the option of offensive spells you were stuck on dodging. Your opponent was fast, she was dead focused on you and seemingly nothing held her back. You had plenty of MP but having to cast a barrier or shield to avoid taking hits on every swing was slowly but surely eating away your MP. He had to wonder why you picked this, why didn’t you pick something offensive? Surely that would've been better than this?

 

Your MP was now down into the single digits and the 5 minute instilled time limit was nearly up. If you both ended up stalling like this, with no HP lost on either side, the amount of MP left would be used to decide the win. And since Noir hadn’t needed to cast another transformation spell since the start...you were almost certainly going to lose.

 

30 seconds before the match ended you both were face to face, her blade and knowing, almost cackling eyes inches from yours which hid behind crossed arms and a fully up barrier. Your eyes searched, frantically thinking before he saw it.

 

That determination, and the spark of an idea.

 

You violently threw out your arms and caused your own barrier to shatter - not peacefully disappearing but magic being thrown OUT. Noir, out of breath from pursuing you for the whole fight was once again caught off guard, falling back and unable to steady herself with a heavy blade for an arm weighing her further back. You immediately threw up both hands, sweat pouring down your forehead as you conjured a barrier behind her, stopping her from fully falling but angled so that she was leaning back, as well as another barrier in front that stopped at her chest. She was trapped between two tight walls, both arms had gotten caught on the barrier behind and were now trapped with her legs. She was motionless and powerless, and it still hadn’t quite caught up in her head what had exactly happened.

 

Running out of time and your magic draining fast from holding such a powerful force up, you quickly shot out a leg and roundhouse kicked her straight to the soul. As soon as you made contact both of your barriers popped from lack of MP and the force, and lack of anything holding her in place, sent her flying back into the dirt.

 

While it was a physical force and didn’t do much damage, it was all you needed for HP to be the qualifying factor instead of MP. He had to admit, he was impressed with you. To you the Tourney wasn’t about throwing hits, it was about strategy and thinking ahead of the opponent. You stood there almost in tears when the victory fanfare had played, wiping off your brow and looking bashfully at the camera in your face.

 

Since then everyone had their eye on you, including himself.

 

He shook his head and glanced at Paps, sitting down next to him while the match on TV seemed to finally be starting. He noticed at a glance that it wasn’t you, you wouldn’t be fighting again for a week or two.

 

He didn’t want to admit it, but...he was looking forward to seeing you again.

 


	3. Day-to-Day Living

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im suffering from Xtreme insomnia so you guys get a surprise chapter, congrats!!! also happy to note, i have like another 2-3k words for future chapters being worked on and plot ideas. pls send pizza to help in my efforts xoxo
> 
> forgive me if theres errors, its 1 am where i live my eyes are no longer cooperating.

[You groaned as you woke up](https://youtu.be/gRwqAU3IfgM), stretching and rolling...straight onto the floor. You released a muffled sigh into the carpet as you stood.

 

Your first match could’ve gone a whole lot better, but at least you stayed in the running right? After you won you immediately felt the after-affects of using up all your MP and boy, did that not feel great. Being low on MP made you feel heavier, like your body was weighed down more. Not to mention the extreme, all over soreness from completely using up your MP in such a short time and the **crippling** headaches. Even though it had been 3 days since the match you still felt lethargic and overall not great.

 

Gazing at the bed longingly, you rubbed your eyes and turned away. Today you _had_ to be a functioning person again, you had already spent 2 days in bed sleeping off the match (and playing games but shush, that was all apart of your ‘recovery process’).

 

You wandered to the bathroom across from your bedroom, washing your face and putting your hair up in a mediocre bun (the absolute max amount of effort you felt you could spend on looks today).

 

When you walked back to your room for clothes you stared at the poster on your wall for a second. The poster in question you had hand-made in the days after that announcement a month ago, it had taken you the better part of 2 days. There were 4 columns, on the left most side there were all 100 of the competitors listed in 50 vertically aligned individual boxes according to their matchup. Your name and Noir’s were at the top, with yellow highlighter signifying your win and a red X by her name stating her loss. You had done the same for every match as it was announced and shown, slowly working out who was left in the competition.

 

In the next column there was an arrow with 25 boxes, all empty. These would be the rounds for Part 2 of the competition which hadn’t quite started yet. It wouldn’t be much different from the matches going on right now.

 

The 3rd column is where things got tricky: 12 boxes just alike to the other 2 columns...but 1 bigger 13th box on the very bottom by itself. Part 3, because there was an odd number of people, involved regular matches as well as 1 special match. 24 people would be fighting each other while 1 selected opponent had to perform a special challenge. This was notorious for being extremely difficult, sometimes involving fighting multiple generated enemies rather than other mages. One game in particular someone had fought a Grand Mage...you shuddered at the thought and hoped that wouldn’t end up being you. People speculated that the mage chosen for that ‘special’ match could either be the best of the competition at the time...or the worst. Everyone had a different opinion on it, but as long as you stayed comfortably in the middle you shouldn’t get chosen right?

 

You grabbed some shorts and a T shirt from your closet and changed quickly. Walking down the short hallway into the living room and kitchen area you glanced at the mirror on the wall before quickly grimacing. God you _looked_ like you got hit by a fucking bus and it felt worse knowing you can’t entirely blame the match for that. The dark circles under your eyes, the random bruises, messy hair and just in general vibe you put out...you were just kind of stuck with it. You weren’t sure if it came with being a student these days or was your own fault since well...you really didn’t take care of yourself.

 

You checked the fridge (entirely empty like you knew it would be) and sighed. Logically you knew you had to go outside to get food, I mean you had slept in till nearly noon and by the time you got up and mentally prepared for the ‘day’...it was 1 PM. You hadn’t eaten since _yesterday_ morning. As a testament to that, your stomach growled loudly and you nearly punched the damn thing. Curse this mortal form, sometimes you wish you were a plant. Plants didn’t have to do shit!

 

You grabbed your backpack and keys before heading out the door from your apartment, sneaking in earbuds to hopefully distract you from the horrible errand you had to run. 

 

Following the twists and turns of your complex’s hallways, you finally found yourself the stairwell and thus freedom. The sunlight almost burned after being cooped up for 2/3 days...that couldn’t be healthy.

 

You were lucky in that your classes were only a 5 minute walk from your building...but all the possible places you could get food were at least 20 if not more. Not to mention, they were all on Main Streets so no matter the time of day it would always be busy. You resigned yourself to your fate.

 

The walk was nice at least, and when you got used to the sun you noticed the day was pretty nice. It was early in the year and there was a bit of a chill in the air but you always liked that kind of cold to an extent. So far you hadn’t seen too many people, you usually don’t in residential areas of Lumos, but as soon as you walked onto the closest Main Street the amount of people hit you like a wall.

 

You inwardly groaned and weaved around people and monsters, desperate to get food and go home as soon as possible. Once you were in the store it was a bit better, it was a week day so it wouldn’t be **too** busy. You grabbed a handbasket and made your way to the back of the store, artificial lights marking the way.

 

It was peaceful for the most part...but you got this weird feeling you were being watched and really, REALLY hoped it wasn’t someone who had recognized you. You and all the other contestants had been warned that the further you got into the games the more likely you were to attract attention in the outside world. To be honest you hadn’t even touched your social media accounts since the announcement a month ago and had your phone set on ‘do not disturb’, the only exception being calls and text messages. Apart of you was afraid of what popularity might bright you, stalker fans and hateful comments. Another part was afraid to know if there was _no_ popularity...what if people just didn’t know you existed despite your match and interviews?

 

That fear is what kept you from checking to see how people thought of you online and you knew you couldn’t avoid it forever...but the fear of seeing that you (possibly) didn’t matter at all in the eyes of the public certainly didn’t make you want to face it.

 

But you could face whatever this was. You picked out some bread and put it in your basket before casually looking down the aisle both ways. You were alone, but you still didn’t feel alone. You hummed while walking through the aisles, nobody really bothering to glance at you yet why did you still feel eyes watching you as you walked? Maybe you’re getting paranoid.

 

You knew you needed enough food to last you for a while but, well...looking at the prices on these snacks were not helping you. This whole store was pricey, but you didn’t really have any other options since you didn’t have a car and really didn’t want to walk an hour or more for food..

 

You sighed and picked out one smaller box before tossing it in, when you turned to leave that's when you noticed someone standing at the end of the aisle. They were trying to hide themselves around the corner, partially peeking out at you before noticing your stares and ducking back.

 

You took out your earbuds and blinked once, twice. You weren’t entirely sure what to make of this. Do you say something?? What if it was a creepy stalker? Oh god are they gonna follow you home.

 

You were already spiraling with all the questions and possibilities. You heard some quiet talking coming from where the figure stood that shook you out of your thoughts. That's when you noticed that the hand, still gripping the wood of the shelves while the body remained hidden, was bones. **Just** bones.

 

“go on paps, it'll be fine,” you could hear from the figure, well, skeleton’s direction. Finally the monster peaked out at you again before fully coming into view in the center of the aisle. He absolutely towered over you and you had to crane your neck to look up at him.

 

[He cleared his...throat?](https://youtu.be/7Z2LXyoCtSk) “PARDON ME FOR MY INTRUSION, DEAR HUMAN!” He announced rather loudly before seeing your wince and then promptly adjusted his voice. “I-uh-am the Great Papyrus.. and I’m your biggest fan…?”

 

The last part he said sheepishly as if it was a question, he had a blush on his cheeks and kept looking from you to the floor to the shelves. You opened your mouth, and closed it. What were supposed to say to that!? Holy shit someone actually LIKED your performance in the match?? Holyshitholyshitholy-

 

You had to say something, you couldn’t just say nothing!

 

You smiled at him, he seemed like such a nice dude and you felt bad you had apparently made him nervous. “It’s nice to meet you, uh, Papyrus! I’m so flattered that you like me enough to be a fan.” You scratched the back of your head nervously, you had zero idea what to say…

 

His face instantly lit up and he started excitedly gesturing as he talked. “IT WAS SO COOL HOW YOU WON THE MATCH AGAINST NOIR, JUST SECONDS TO SPARE AND-OH AND YOU LOOKED SO COOL WHEN YOU FORMED THE HAND BARRIERS AGAINST HER ATTACKS I’VE NEVER SEEN MAGIC LIKE THAT IT'S SO NEAT-”

 

You laughed, oh my gosh this guy was adorable! This is totally what you needed, just knowing that someone out there like this was watching your matches somehow made you feel a little better, somehow made _everything_ a little better.

 

“You’re too sweet, it really isn’t anything special. I got really lucky.”

 

You heard a chuckle, and another figure appeared from behind Papyrus, seemingly there the whole time.

 

He was a skeleton who felt like the exact opposite of Papyrus, both in height and in personality. His uh ‘eyes’ (eye holes? You inwardly shrug) seemed only half open and his posture was terrible, slouching with both hands in his hoodie pockets. If he didn’t slouch so much his height would be a little above yours, but right now you were at eye-level.

 

He had a grin on his face while he glanced at you. “come on, kid. you were pretty great out there, **bar** -rier none.”

 

You looked at him and blinked. Papyrus sighed. “IM SO SORRY, GREAT HUMAN, THAT MY _TERRIBLE_ BROTHER IS LIKE THIS.”

 

And then when it clicked you made what can only be described as the _ugliest_ of snorts.

 

“I guess you could say I’m exceedingly _spell_ -read.”

 

Papyrus groaned into his hands while his brother’s ever-present grin grew. You had no idea who this guy was, but you could tell you were gonna get along great.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> these puns are a st retch blease forgive me. im good at puns but only the really simple ones...
> 
> Unrelated Fact: i kid you not, one day while i was getting lunch at a grocery store I told my friend (word for word) "Man I hate having to eat to live! I wish i was a plant, i wanna photosynthesize." and the guy behind the counter looked...xtremely uncomfortable lol sorry mister.


	4. A New Friend

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm gonna *attempt* weekly updates but I make no promises!!!!! Its getting closer to Finals Week and life is now Hell (also im sick again r i p me)
> 
> Disclaimer: im not planning on doing every other chapter from Sans perspective, it just kind of ended up like that for now. i kinda just do whatever *shrug*.

[Sans watched](https://youtu.be/3nfdu-lk6jA), feigning disinterest while Pap roped the human into more conversation on magic. For the moment it seemed as if you were happy to humor him, answering all the questions he excitedly threw at you while maintaining the same dopey smile that appeared on your face after your pun exchange.

 

It had actually been Sans who recognized you in the store, but it took him a while before he told Paps and encouraged him to approach you. Walking in with your disheveled look as if you had recently rolled out of bed was not exactly how he expected to find you (not that he was expecting to meet you at all to be honest).

 

He carefully watched you pick out items, studying your face in reaction to prices, calories, sales...the former King of Monsters didn’t make him a judge for nothing. He was good at reading people, and you were pretty much an open book. It only took him a few minutes to see that you must’ve been hard on cash, you put back half of the things you looked at and a few you gazed at almost longingly. The way you carried yourself spoke a lot about you as well. You had good posture (unlike him) but you never looked anyone in the eye. You were always the first to move out of another person’s way, you always seemed mindful of people and smiled when you saw a child (or a dog, there were a couple of dogs here and there).

 

Overall, you seemed like a decent person...he hoped you were a decent person. He thought, worse case scenario, if you did turn out to be not so great he could always shepherd Paps away with an excuse and just never come back to this area. Not like they didn’t have other grocery stores to go to.

 

As he kept a watchful eye on you, though he didn’t sense any malice. When you first noticed Paps trying to approach you he could sense your unease, but it didn’t read as anything other than anxiety. Now that the two of you were talking you had relaxed a lot more, though he still sensed some hidden tension in you. He absent-mindedly tried to think why that might be, surely you weren't afraid of him and his brother? It was a possibility but he really thought that couldn’t be the case, otherwise you wouldn’t have laughed as hard as you did at his great puns.

 

“I-I DON’T KNOW IF YOU ARE AWARE HUMAN BUT I’VE ACTUALLY SENT YOU SOME FANMAIL ONLINE,”  Papyrus started nervously, jarring Sans out of his thoughts. Sans was definitely was not aware of this, but then again it’s not as if you can see private messages on someone’s online feed. He looked from his brother to you, awaiting your reaction.

 

You were...surprised? Which means you must have not gotten them. At least that’s what he hoped instead of the likely answer for celebs which was, “I deleted them and never expected to actually run into the owner.”

 

“Oh, I’m so sorry! I haven’t been on my accounts since before the games started...I didn’t know anyone had been sending me messages. What’s your account name?” You immediately pulled out your phone, to Sans surprise, and pulled up twitter.

 

“@COOLSKELETON95!” Papyrus responded excitedly. You followed him back and Pap urged her to follow Sans as well. He almost wanted to protest but he didn’t quite speak up in time, he could already feel his phone vibrate in his pocket from the notification. Oh well. He planned on following her anyway, he always kept an eye on those who got close to Paps.

“Well I’m happy I got to meet you, sorry I have to cut this short...these are gonna need to be refrigerated haha,” she motioned towards some of the items in her basket.

 

“OF COURSE, WE HOPE TO SEE YOU AGAIN SOON..POSSIBLY?” Papyrus asked, hopeful. Sans noticed the ‘we’ and gave a curious glance at his brother but said nothing. Whatever made him feel better.

 

“Oh, definitely! Just message me online, I promise I’ll respond now that I know,” she laughed and gave a wave before exiting the aisle, heading for the check-out.

 

“ISN’T SHE NICE? I’M SO GLAD I MADE A NEW FRIEND.” The taller skeleton said excitedly while wandering back to the pasta section.

 

“yup, wouldn’t want you to get bonely.”

 

“SANS! UGH.” Sans grinned. He wasn’t too sure on that ‘friend’ part but you didn’t seem dangerous. That was the most important thing.

 

[That night](https://youtu.be/AymdefgOZeM) he noticed Papyrus up far later than he usually is, still in the living room with Mettaton reruns playing in the dark. The only other light coming from his laptop which he saw was open to Twitter. Sans stood at one end of the couch and examined the screen from behind Pap’s head (who was too engrossed in typing to notice).

 

Specifically, he was messaging you.

 

Sans had honestly already forgotten about the encounter and wouldn’t have remembered if it weren’t for this. They went home, put away the groceries and he had taken a nap. He remembered the notif on his phone, but to be frank he didn’t really use his phone too much.

 

It was already dark outside, probably had been for a while.  He wondered how long you had been chatting. By the looks of the convo you guys must have been talking for at least an hour. Finally Paps noticed his brother standing behind him.

 

“SANS! JEEZ DON’T SNEAK UP ON PEOPLE LIKE THAT.”

 

“sorry, did i rattle your bones?”

 

“IM IGNORING YOU.”

 

Papyrus went back to typing,. It looked like the conversation was about magic training. Pap must’ve been asking more questions and you were embracing the role of professor for tonight’s lesson on human magic. Sans was glad you were at least humoring Paps. He let his brother be and decided not to be too nosy.

 

He wandered to the kitchen to get a ketchup bottle before sitting at the counter and pulling out his phone. The notif was still there: **MagicalMisfit @mag1c_stud13s is now following you**. He opened the app and followed you back.

 

For a while he scrolled through your posts, noticing that you were right in what you said before: your last post, aside from one today, was a date from before the game announcements. You really must have not known how much your account had blown up since then, follower count now hovering around 60,000. He wasn’t sure how many you had before but he was almost certain it was nowhere near that...it would probably grow even more the farther into the games you made it.

 

Mostly your past posts were memes (which he just happened to like and retweet a few) along with a few posts talking about your latest research for school, some good academic reads, and maybe a few comments on events at the time (for example, it looked like you seemed pretty against a motion by the mage government to add tracking implications to magic users. He didn’t even know that was a thing, but apparently it had gone on a few months ago).

 

After doing that for a while he check out your other accounts which you had linked in your twitter. Might as well, he thought. He refreshed the page and saw you had just posted something new. You had retweeted the official page for the Tourney which had made a post about your next battle.

 

In two weeks time you would be facing off against a mage named Badulf Grek, who Sans had never heard of before. The timestamp said this had been made around an hour ago so he figured he must’ve slept through it and Pap already knew.

 

“SANS!” Papyrus yelled excitedly from the couch, pulling Sans out of his own mind.

 

“whats up, bro.”

 

“THE HUMAN, ATHENA, HAS ACCEPTED MY INVITATION TO TRAIN TOMORROW!” Wow, Paps moved fast. And you had already agreed? After knowing him for less than one day? You either wanted something...or were extremely trusting of strangers.

 

“nice, im happy for you paps.”

 

“YOURE COMING TOO, RIGHT?” Papyrus asked as he closed his laptop and began to clean up the living room, presumably heading to bed.

 

“course,” Sans replied back, looking at your profile on his phone. Definitely wouldn’t be able to forget about you so easily now. 

 

Something told him you were gonna be seeing a lot more of one another.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i swear i have more than this written also but its all faarrr into the future chapters, youll just have to wait and see~


	5. Messages

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did anyone ask for magical explanation/exposition??? no. did i give you 2k words of it???? yes. don't hit me pls, its important i swear. the next chapter is already like halfway done! i have an essay for class due monday tho so pls appreciate i spent time on this instead of that LOL im dying.
> 
> hope its interesting? wasnt originally planning to look at the convo you and Paps had but this but thought it could help expand on some stuff

[You had met a monster who claimed to be your biggest fan](https://youtu.be/2Udq8jLSN1k)...and his brother, but that was less important (you only ever heard one sentence from the guy). To be quite honest you _thought_ that would be the end your little encounter and you’d go back to...well normal (if boring) life. Just you, class work and some magic practice.

 

Yes he was sweet, he was soooo sweet! But it wasn’t like you’d ever end up seeing each other again. You thought, as you walked back home, it was nice you finally had a fan. But...the reality was he’d watch your matches online or on TV and that’d be the extent of your relationship...until you either lost a match or he got bored. That’s what you thought.

 

Until you made it home. In the store, when you had added him back out of your amazing, spur of the moment decision (words having left your mouth before you even processed them) you hadn’t _really_ paid attention to all the other stuff on your social media. If you hadn’t decided to add him back maybe you would’ve lived without knowing your follower count had grown exponentially in the last weeks. Like… 600x more than it had been before...what the **actual fuck.**

 

Your twitter had maybe 100 followers or so before, most of them probably spam bots. Now...now it was frankly ridiculous. You had lots of random messages from strangers asking if you were willing to do promotions, shout-outs… and perform at birthday parties? Good grief. You deleted all of those.

 

A few messages you kept…some people had sent you really nice, heartfelt messages saying how much they liked your magic or fighting style. A few of the messages looked like they came from children (who almost definitely should NOT have an account on there but you weren’t gonna report the poor little tots, they were sweet). It was a inner struggle on whether you should reply to all of these...but ultimately you did. It took longer than it should have, you second guessed everything you said in case it would be taken the wrong way.

 

Finally, you arrived at Papyruses messages, one of the oldest ones in your inbox. You really did feel bad that you hadn’t known about his messages...he seemed so kind and you hated making anyone think you had intentionally ignored them. Now that you knew you had fans (something that still kinda made you nervous, woo boy that's a big number of people to disappoint) you conceded that you had to act appropriately. If you were a fan of someone, how would you want them to treat you? You thought on it...

 

and you sent him a message.

 

[ _Hi Papyrus! I’m so glad I got to meet you today, to be honest I didn’t know I had any fans let alone a_ ** _biggest_** **_fan_** _haha. Having people look up to me and, well, being ‘semi-famous’ is all very new to me...I hope you forgive me for not seeing these messages sooner. Your words are too kind and mean the world to me! :) ]_

You side eyed it, hoping that was ok before clicking send.

 

It had been a few hours since you went to the store.  Looking out the window in your living room you could see it was just now starting to get dark, sunsetting in the distance over the tall buildings. By the time you turned your attention back to your phone screen you could see he was already typing a reply.

 

That was fast.

 

[ _IM SO GLAD TO HEAR FROM YOU HUMAN! PLEASE DO NOT WORRY, I UNDERSTAND THAT A MAGE AS GREAT AS YOU IS VERY BUSY PREPARING FOR HER MAGIC HUMAN GAMES! I AM ONLY HAPPY THAT MY TRUE WORDS HAVE AFFECTED YOU IN SUCH A WAY! ]_

 

There was a pause, and then the typing continued.

 

_[ I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, ALSO HAVE MANY ADORING FANS AND IF YOU SHOULD EVER LIKE HELP IN DEALING WITH YOUR NEW FOUND FAME I SHALL BE GLAD TO ASSIST! ]_

 

That made you chuckle, what a nice skeleton!

 

The two of you ended up chatting longer than either of you really had bargained for. You asked about his fame and you learned he actually had his own youtube channel for cooking! Pulling it up in another tab you saw it had a few hundred subscribers, plus 1 now with you. Scrolling through the videos you could see many different monsters, along with a small human child, appearing in the thumbnails. Most of the dishes were pasta or spaghetti based…

 

After that he had, in turn, asked you about human magic. A part of you knew all he could want to know was available online since many humans didn’t have any magic at all and still wanted to enjoy the games...but what the hell, you didn’t mind explaining it for him.

 

He asked about the different kinds of magic.

 

[Magic was like a large tree](https://youtu.be/kHw2V0C-D-o)...the trunk was magic in its plainest form. Just like how water turns to ice when frozen, magic changes shapes and form based on the power, knowledge and will behind it. By human mages, as far as you knew, it could not be used or accessed in it's 'plain' form. Every mage carried this pure magic in them from birth. 

 

When used, magic expresses itself in a variety of different ways. These would be the branches of the tree. Larger branches separate into smaller ones, and then again into even smaller ones forming niche kinds of magic.

 

A large section would be Elemental Magic, which then branches off into water, fire, earth, lighting and air. These in turn could possibly branch off again or connect (such as weather magic which also controlled elements like water, lighting and air but in a very different way). It is seen as the most ‘basic’ of magic. Often when children start to practice their spells they begin by using the elements. 

 

Another section would be simply classified as Protectives, a popular and well used branch. This included separate categories of  healing and barriers. This is the kind of magic taught in schools, even non-specialized magic ones, so everyone should have knowledge of how to heal basic wounds and defend themselves. You only became good at it because you studied it for years outside of school and had taken self-defense courses.

 

After that, magic gets complicated.

 

The ‘tree’ so to speak was constantly in flux, constantly being studied and amended for new types of magic discovered or for types that **had** existed but didn’t seem to anymore.

 

Transformation was a large branch. You explained that Ava Noir, the girl you had fought in your first match, had used body transformation spells. She had turned her arm into an object, but animal transfiguration was also possible as well as body disfiguration (changing your own look subtly to mimicking another person entirely).

 

Though with the runes on her arm it could also contest as Runework, an entirely different branch which involved putting magic behind written word rather than spoken or ‘felt’ energies. There was currently a hot debate on whether Runework could do things that other magics could not. How exactly it functioned, whether it made spells easier and if it saved MP by essentially already having the magic in the words were unknown at the time. Personally, you speculated that the runes were tattoos imbued with magic and Runework likely runs in her family. It's possible that without the runes her spell could’ve cost more MP or been harder overall to cast.

 

Enchanting was also common and there were plenty of shops around the city that catered to it. It was also incredibly difficult since it spells on objects could very easily just...not work. It took a lot of trial and error to get things like mops that cleaned floors by themselves or locks that only opened at the touch of a particular person. Imbuing something with magic that did not originally have it was difficult. The best example you could give was writing code in computers: if you don’t get incredibly specific in your directions you could either end up with a disaster or something that doesn’t work at all. If you told the mop to clean the floor but not under what circumstances then it would never stop. If you told it to clean the floor when wet, but didn’t give it an area limit, what if it escaped out the house and tried cleaning a rainy street? You had tried enchanting once, like you had with most kinds of magic, and really didn’t care for it. Pain in the ass.

 

Off the top of your head you listed some other kinds you knew existed, but didn’t see as often: Illusion, Time magic, Summoning, Telekinetics... a lot of Time and Summoning was locked behind bloodlines, but not all of it. Could you travel to tomorrow using time magic? No, but you could _try_ to learn a spell to show you brief glimpses of the future, something fortune tellers often specialized in. Whether you could actually cast it  and it be effective was questionable, and the same went with all magic.

 

Overall, anyone could _try_ anything, you certainly had. It’s like any skill, you have to put a lot of time and effort into learning and making it your own. And also like a skill, it helps if you already have an affinity for it. Some things you just didn’t click with and you’d never be as good in them as a mage who’s bloodline was associated and trained in it.

 

He asked you about bloodlines then, and you tried your best to elaborate.

 

Ancestors are important in magic, and while it's debatable where exactly a magic line originates from it's clear that if your parents have a certain type of magic you’ll be good at that type. If you come from a mage-heavy bloodline then it’s possible you might have a small branch of magic only your family can preform. For example, you knew that there was someone in the Tourney who came from a bloodline of lightning magic. While elemental magic isn’t inherently special, they could perform spells using lighting that no one outside of that family can.

 

[ _[ I REMEMBER SEEING THAT MAGES HAVE SPECIALIZATIONS, DO YOU HAVE ONE AS WELL? ]_ ](https://youtu.be/LYc3z9H8OFM)

 

Well….you didn’t know what to say.

 

Officially? No. The paperwork that had your information, akin to a normal human birth certificate, didn’t have any record of Bloodline or Specialization.

 

The family you had been raised with, your father along with the grandparents on his side, didn't have any magic. You hadn’t been ‘magically’ registered until you were a pre-teen since they hadn’t noticed your ability and you had been afraid to expose yourself. Without your mother they didn’t know what had been inherited from her as opposed to being passed down a long Bloodline. You also hadn’t been formally trained in any magic and didn’t attend a practical magic school, both of which would have found out what your talent was in and helped to hone you in it.

 

In a case like yours, do to an unfortunate lack of magic family and training, you were seen as ‘unspecialized’

 

...but you were completely aware of the magic you had gotten from your mother. Should you be honest? Would he tell? It wasn’t something you were sure you wanted to publicize for a lot of reasons, one being the advantage that no opponent knew what you had experience in.

 

As you thought about it, the news station on your TV interrupted with a ‘special announcement’ from the Tourney. They were announcing the new match that would happen two weeks from today...and your name popped up on the screen.

 

You didn’t recognize the other contestant, Baldulf Grek, meaning you’d have to do some _serious_ research later…

 

But right now you had a question to answer. After pondering...you typed

 

[ _Officially no, but I inherited Ice and Illusion magic from mother. Can I ask that you keep this between us..? I hope you understand.]_

 

You clicked send and winced. It looked pretty suspicious…

 

Immediately you get a reply

_[WOWIE! THATS AMAZING, BUT OF COURSE I WILL RESPECT YOUR WISHES! I WILL NOT UTTER A WORD ABOUT YOUR WONDERFUL MAGIC. ]_

 

A smile broke out on your face, bless him.

 

The conversation continued as he asked about training. That you weren’t expecting! Admittedly you hadn’t trained much for the last match and you sheepishly told him that, but you said that this time you wanted to be better prepared. You said something about probably going to the mage gym that's on this side of town since it would be a contained area that you could practice in.

 

To your great surprise, he asked if he and a friend could train with you. The idea kind of made you uncomfortable...you just met this guy today and he already wanted to come with you somewhere and bring another stranger with him? But thinking on it...you didn’t want to be rude.

 

That reality you envisioned where he was just a smiling face behind a screen, where you both would be nothing more than a passing acquaintances was fading. 

 

He seemed so nice, and it would be a public place...you accepted. 


	6. Water you waiting for?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey so every chapter of this fic has now been updated with MORE MUSIC~! I thought about it and rather than do 1 playlist (or a playlist per chapter) I just started linking more songs that fit the mood directly into the fic. Each chapter should have at LEAST 2 songs in it now if not more! They're optional of course, but I highly recommend them Especially for the fight scenes~! Also, fair warning: right click and open the links in a new tab otherwise it will just send you directly to that page!
> 
>  
> 
> UPDATE: Did a sketch that goes with this chapter! You can find it at the bottom/end :D 
> 
>  
> 
> ALSO!!! Thank you so much for 100 kudos!! Ahhhhh I could cry ;-; everyone is so nice, i love u all!!! mwah! <3

[ Papyrus claimed the ‘sooner the better’ ](https://youtu.be/1kpC_M6Ycd0) so now here you were, the very next morning waiting on your poptart to finish while furiously pacing...totally **not** ready for meeting someone you barely knew and their friend in, like, an hour.

 

You had been pacing around your small living room for a while now, and were pretty sure that if you continued any longer you’d make a physical indent in the carpet. The click of the toaster was a blessing and you grabbed your breakfast quickly, you’d eat it on the way.

 

Grabbing your backpack that had your water bottle, and laptop full of magic theory, in it, you made your way out the door.

 

The gym was at least a 30 minute walk away...and in that time you managed to finish your meal and tie your hair up in a ponytail so it’d be out of the way. You continually checked your phone for any messages in that time but so far Papyrus hadn’t sent you anything.

 

The large gymnasium loomed in front of you, orange and white bricks decorating the walls while the faded sign above the several sets of double doors read **_Magi._ **You absentmindedly trekked up the stairs and through a door, ending up in the central gym. It was the size of a soccer field, with some space in the front left side for a help desk and several corridors off the sides of the main gym floor. It was a week day so it was pretty empty, you saw only a few mages who appeared to be using magic to move the ball back and forth between them.

 

Approaching the counter, you signed in while also specifying you were letting guests in as well. Thinking for a moment, you knocked on the glass and asked the woman behind the counter for one of the private gyms. It may be empty in here but you’d still like the privacy, you never know where your opponents could be lurking…

 

The lady behind the counter looked up from her book and seemed to recognize you, eyes widening. “O-of course! Is there a specific type you want o-”

 

“What are the options?”

 

“W-Well we have water and earth...as well as electricity-” she went off to list a few more, smaller and niche gym rooms. Thinking on it, you should probably work on magic you already had experience with.

 

“The water one, please.”

 

She reached behind her on the wall to grab a key, writing down your information before handing it to you.

 

“First corridor on the left,  it’s the door at the very end of hall.” You smiled and took the key, [ turning around just in time to see Papyrus ](https://youtu.be/SOGdE2COmFo), his brother (…Sans was it?) and a tall fish woman walk in.

 

Papyrus, now sporting a sweatband and a colorful tank that read _Jog Boy_ , took a small look around before seeing you. He waved excitedly and you returned it with a grin. He quickly walked over with the others following.

 

Sans wore the exact same outfit from the day before...which was concerning to say the least. He seemed far more interested in the surroundings than you and only spared you a glance. The fish lady, however, was grinning almost madly. Rows of sharp teeth glinted in the lights and sent a shiver down your spine.

 

Her long red hair was tied into a ponytail similar to yours and she matched Papyrus with a tank that read _Fight Girl_ ….did they make matching gym outfits. You were convinced that they did.

 

“ATHENA! IM SO GLAD YOU AGREED TO TRAIN WITH ME AND MY FRIEND. THIS IS UNDYNE, SHE IS ALSO VERY STRONG AND GOOD AT TRAINING!” He struck a pose while gesturing towards the woman.

 

She wasted no time in bending down and taking your outstretched hand into her own fierce grip. “Sup, punk! Nice to meet ya, you looked amazing in that fight on TV!!” She shook your hand up and down so hard your whole body shook until she released you (you swore you could see Sans chuckling at that). “You got a serious lack of muscles though….don’t worry with MY training regime you’ll be HALF as buff as me!!! FUHUHU!!” Her laugh echoed as she dramatically stood with her hands on her hips.

 

You really weren’t sure what to say about that...she had a point though. Your magics had never been entirely physical based so you didn’t have a lot of strength or muscle. It could be helpful in games…but that was also a lot of work, and you kind of had enough to worry about without adding ‘get stronger so the Fish Lady doesn’t break my hand’ to the list.

 

Deciding not to comment, you lifted up the key. “I uh snagged a private room for training!”

 

“WOWIE! SO OFFICIAL. LEAD THE WAY, HUMAN FRIEND!”

 

You all wandered in the direction of the room, footsteps echoing through the halls and small talk ensuing between Papyrus and Undyne at how excited they were to see up close human magic...you were flattered and a LITTLE scared to disappoint…

 

Sans stayed quiet as he trailed alone, behind you but still in front of Papyrus and Undyne. It felt really awkward not to say anything so as you neared the door you turned to him.

 

“So, you training too?” You pulled out the key and unlocked the door while he regarded you with a sideways look.

 

“Between you and key, just here for the show.” A laugh escaped from your lips as you pushed into the room. He seemed like a nice enough guy, if not just a _little_ too quiet for your tastes.

 

[ The room was a decent size ](https://youtu.be/k8zseZaaLHE) , not nearly as big as the main gym...but you estimated it was maybe around half that size? You glanced at the sign by the door that had rules and common courtesy: ‘ _Please remember to put water back into the pool when finished! Report all accidents to the front desk and in an emergency cal xxx-xx-xxx, REMINDER! This room is not spell protected…’_ Directly across from you lied a thin pool which ran the length of the wall and couldn’t have been deeper than a foot. The walls and floor were typical bricks and glossed gym wood, but the walls were tinted blue.

 

You placed your bag on the benches that lined the wall by the door and took out your laptop. Sans sat on the bench and got comfortable, slouching against the wall. You could feel his eyes...well, uh eye holes? On you with am unspoken question as you set your laptop up next to him and signed in. You pulled up your documents and responded without looking up. “Human spells involve a lot of ‘theory’ and research, or at least the more advanced ones do. Mostly this is just in case I need help figuring out a particular move.” Clicking a few more times, you stood back up and met his gaze. He only ‘hmmed’ in response, looking around the room once more.

 

The others sat down their gym bags by yours and looked around before turning to you excitedly.

 

“SO PUNK! How do you train?!?!!!?” Undyne made a punching motion and caught one fist in the other, her grin expanding.

 

“I AM ALSO VERY EXCITED TO SEE HOW EXACTLY YOU PRACTICE!” Papyrus said enthusiastically.

 

You rubbed the back of your head absentmindedly. “Well it depends on the kind of magic-”

 

“So what what kind of magic are you using today, then?!?!!?!?” Undyne asked, patience wearing thin but excitement growing.

 

“Uh..water..” “Oh **HELL YEA!** A lady after my own heart!” She clapped you on the back and you would’ve absolutely face planted if Papyrus didn’t catch you and set you upright. That was gonna bruise for certain…

 

Sans snorted, Undyne went off again about how weak you are (but also how she was looking forward to your magic regardless. )

 

“SO, WHICH ONE OF US WOULD YOU LIKE TO START THE ENCOUNTER WITH?”

 

Papyrus left his hand on your back and you looked up at the question, eyebrow raised.

 

“I’m sorry...I don’t know what you mean…”

 

Undyne and Papyrus looked at one another and then back at you, Undyne looking as confused as you.

 

“What do you mean you don’t know?! You’ve done it before, in the match!”

 

“Oh! You call that an encounter? Interesting… oh but that isn’t typically how I train,” you said thoughtfully, hand on your chin as you thought about it.

 

“It isn’t!?” Undyne responded incredulously.

 

“I mean...mages duel against one another to train, sure, but usually it's in a regulated setting so neither can get hurt. Not to mention that typically the SOUL never comes out...I mean, unless you were specifically looking at stats like in a case with the Tourney… either way, with magic you have to be careful not to hurt the other person. I don’t like risking that so I don’t fight against other people,” you answered honestly while rubbing an arm.

 

The two monsters looked at you thoughtfully. “Well I gotta say, punk, it wouldn’t be easy to put a scratch on me! But if you really aren’t comfortable with it then we won’t push you.”

 

“AGREED.” Papyrus nodded solemnly.

 

Looking between the two of them, you smiled softly. “Thanks for understanding, I would just really hate for anyone to get hurt.”

 

You glanced at the water pool then back at them, thinking to yourself. “Well, alright I think I have an idea of what we can do.”

 

Undyne fist pumped the air. “Alright!! Spill it!”

 

“So, typically what I focus on in my training is dodging and using magic to avoid attacks. Maybe we could still do an ‘encounter’ in that way? But I won’t be using attacks against either of you. I’m sorry if this isn’t what you had in mind when you agreed to training with me-”

 

“SOUNDS GOOD TO ME!”

 

“Me to!! Do you mind if I go first Paps?”

 

“NOT AT ALL!” Papyrus took a seat next to Sans who looked as if he was about ready to fall asleep.

 

Undyne crack her neck and knuckles as you walked towards opposite ends of the room.

 

“You ready?!” She called out and you nodded solemnly.

 

She used two fingers in a ‘come here’ motion, and you immediately felt the tug on your chest. Your SOUL glimmered in front of you, but your stats weren’t off to the side like they usually were. She must not have CHECKED you.

 

[ You both took a deep breath ](https://youtu.be/8On2lQenMIQ) and in one hand she summoned an ethereal spear out of seemingly nowhere. With a grin she yelled, “GET READY, I AIN’T GOIN’ EASY ON YOU!” and threw her weapon with a deft motion, aimed at your chest.

 

You immediately moved to the side, spear dissipating as soon as it whirred passed it’s intended target. She raised a hand and summoned two spears which hovered above her, already aimed.

 

You quickly made a sweeping, wavy motion your right hand, looping it and mimicking it with the left before raising both upward. Water in the pool rose, steadily and shakily moving in the same movements you had made towards your position until it settled. Water trails loosely encircled you, glimmering in the artificial light. With a hand outstretched (letting the other fall) you let them float there while you awaited her next move.

 

You could see the excitement in her eyes as she laughed nearly maniacally, casting both spears at you and quickly preparing two more. These two were aimed at your left and right side respectively. Changing your stance so that you leaned forward dramatically on your right foot, you pushed both hands out and up like punches but with all your fingers flat. Your water responded, quickly shooting forward in two separate streams following your hands’ motions. They engulfed the spears, who were only a few feet away from you by then, and the pressure behind the water hit at an upward angle causing the spears to change course. Both hit the ceiling before dissipating, with all your water scattering into puddles on the ground thanks to the hit.

 

Standing, you watched as she directed her left arm up, then down with two fingers . The two new spears that were floating above you came in a downward spiral towards your position, one following the exact same path as the other.

 

Your stance widened, hands clenched into fists and slowly opened as they raised. The puddles around you slowly began to bead into water droplets like reverse rain, soon forming one big body of water. Concentrating, sweat dripping down your face as you expelled MP to make the move work, you quickly whipped the water around your back. Rolling your shoulders as you switched control from the left hand to the right, the spears grew nearer.

 

You directed the water towards the first spear, attempting to hit it from the side and direct it away to your left. However, the closer it got you could see that it was too close now, the loose pressure of the water couldn’t knock it away fast enough even with the energy you put behind it. You didn’t like it but...if you didn’t want to get hit, you’d have to do _that._

 

Inwardly sighing you snapped your fingers, almost wincing as you could _hear_ the ice being formed at the very tip of the water stream before solidifying. It became just hard enough to knock the spear away without grazing you. Immediately afterward you purposefully fell onto your back, hitting the floor so hard it almost knocked the wind out you. You ended up narrowly missing the second spear as it flew by and landed a foot away, above your head.

 

When you looked at where it landed before dissipating (and saw how close you had gotten to a spear in the face) you laughed nervously. “Damn, Undyne...you’re really talented.” [ Your SOUL quietly slipped back into your chest. ](https://youtu.be/t2vRxCeiwN4)

 

“Aww, punk. You aren’t too bad yourself, that water shit is cool!!” You sat up and watched as she walked towards you, desperately trying to fight a blush you had unintentionally given her from the compliment.

 

“YEA!! ITS NEATO SEEING IT ON TV, BUT HUMAN MAGIC IN PERSON IS-”

 

“magical?” Sans finished with his ever present, cheeky grin.

 

“YES I-NO WAIT,  AGH! SANS PLEASE, NOT IN FRONT OF MY COOL FRIENDS!” The skeleton huffed and gestured towards you and Undyne before standing and joining the both of you. Sans only grinned wider at his brothers apparent torment.

 

As you collected the water, which had pooled in small areas of the floor, you thought on what he said. He had called you a friend? Wasn’t that a bit soon considering you met, oh I don't know, _yesterday?_ But when you glanced up at Papyrus’s face, who was excitedly discussing with Undyne about how close she had gotten with her spears and how **exhilarating** the fight had been, something in your heart just...tugged.

 

and something in you just kind of...broke.

 

You absentmindedly put the water back in the pool, gently floating it down. How long had it been since you had made a friend? Adult life didn’t give you many opportunities to be honest, and too many people left your life as soon as they entered it. The few people you cared about were so far away...and even though you still loved them it just wasn’t the same not having them physically there with you.

 

Plus, when was the last time you talked to another person?...like _really_ talked? Not the kind of conversation you had with the cashier of a fastfood place or the kind you had with acquaintances (  “hey how are ya?” “good (lie), how about you?” ). Papyrus had been the first in a long time who seemed to want anything to do with you. He was kind, and Undyne ( although a bit scary-strong) seemed like she was a nice person too. His brother didn’t seem to care for you one way or another, but he didn’t hate you and that was good enough in your book. 

...

 

Maybe…

 

Maybe you were just a little lonely.

 

And...maybe, despite all the reservations felt deep in your chest, you were ok with being his new friend. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gonna try to have a good amount of music in every chapter! This one definitely has the most LOL.


	7. To know thy enemy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a transitional chapter while so we can get prepared for the next match! 
> 
>  

[The training](https://youtu.be/pShnNvEIt64)  had actually ended up being extremely helpful for you in the long run. Your fight with Undyne made you consider things about your water magic that you hadn’t before, like how much force and pressure you would need to exert on a body of water to have it more effectively move an object or body. It also made you consider that if you had thinned the water into smaller streams, perhaps you could have cut the spears? Either way, you were glad you agreed to this just for that insight. 

 

After a short break you trained with Papyrus as well. He was a sweetheart and must’ve noticed how tired you were after the uh  _ close call _ you had with Undyne...at least that’s what you assumed. All in all it looked as if he was taking it extremely easy on you with his bone attacks. 

 

With him you experimented in using water to slide on the floor, allowing for easier and faster dodges. You knew you could do this with ice but...well, you weren’t doing that. Your heart kind of ached at the thought. Besides, you were curious if water would also work, you had never attempted it before so it meant you’d get to learn something new.

 

...it also meant a lot of falling on your ass and ending up with a (likely) bruised tailbone. Every time you fell down it never failed to make Undyne (and sometimes Sans) laugh. You think it bruised your already fragile ego a bit but hey, if it made them laugh then at least it was good for something right? Eventually you got the hang of it.

 

The entire time though you felt like there were eyes on you...not in the way Papyrus was watching your fight earlier, but in a way that felt like every move you made was being

 

**judged.**

 

If you thought about it...it felt similar to the gaze felt on you at the supermarket yesterday...but that's stupid! You must just be paranoid; You tried to forget about it.

 

After Papyrus and you had practiced for a while and you both took another break you told them you would be trying some more solo magic You gave them an out, saying it might be uninteresting since it’d just be your usual routine of practicing alone (plus you’d probably end up muttering to yourself again) but Undyne and Papyrus seemed incredibly interested and asked to stay.

 

A lot of it was just testing your limits: how much water could you control at once? How fast could you move your limit of water versus how fast could you move a tiny drop? What was your limit on reach? Hard to tell on that one since the room wasn’t huge or anything. You practiced a bit taking water out of your clothes, out of your hair and off your skin (to which Papyrus was _momentarily_ stunned you had purposefully drenched yourself and hat was kind of funny). Finally, you tried temporarily ‘releasing’ control over streams before trying to take hold again to see how long the ‘delay’ was. 

 

All of these things were mundane to you and other mages, but were also important factors in knowing yourself and your own magic. You’d experienced all of these before, but since you don't use water magic for fighting it’s easy for things to get a bit rusty. Everyone seemed to like it well enough, though, and when you all parted ways they thanked  _ you _ for letting them watch! How thoughtful. The only other eventful thing that had happened was you getting Papyrus and Undyne’s phone number...you couldn’t say no to those skeleton puppy eyes when he asked. 

 

[That had been a few days ago](https://youtu.be/AcHJivAeCFw) , now you were at home and alone as usual. 

 

Well… ‘alone’ only physically. Papyrus had messaged you a  **lot** since then. And surprisingly, Undyne as well! At first you received no messages from her and you were too scared to send one first...what would you even say? After a day, Papyrus must’ve sensed that neither of you would bridge the gap so he just put all of you in a group chat together. 

 

Now every other hour Papyrus was sending you a message asking what you were doing, telling you what he (or Undyne, or some kid named Frisk) had been doing, and what his brother had currently decided to annoy him with (today it was socks in the living room, apparently.) Undyne would respond less often than Papyrus would but had her own take on his messages ( “I DID NOT BURN THE KITCHEN! ITS JUST… A LITTLE  SIMMERED IS ALL!! THE BLACK MARKS ADD CHARM!”) Even though you usually weren’t one for so much messaging you found yourself spending a lot of time talking to them and getting caught up in their antics. 

 

You had also noticed that Undyne (@strongfish91) was following you online, so you followed her back. Thinking on it more, you decided to look at her followers along with Papyrus. You didn’t recognize most of the monsters there but a few of them had been mentioned and you wondered...would it be weird to follow them too? They had all actually followed you first...maybe it was only fair? What was the social etiquette of this??? Oh well, fuck it. You were doing it. 

 

You recognized Alphys (@alphys) almost immediately, that was Undyne's girlfriend who she proudly bragged about  _ only all the time.  _ Then the former queen of monsters (@2toriel)...she was following you??? Hoooly shit. Yea no, you  **had** to follow her back. Then came the king (@kingfluffybuns) as well...god ok?! Just casual royalty following you, no big deal or anything…

 

After them it took you a minute to recognize the human kid that all of them were following. It was one of the kids who had messaged you before! It had been a  _ really  _ well written message from a kid….which made you wonder if their mom wrote it actually…but either way, it had stuck with you. On closer inspection, you realized this was the kid Papyrus and Undyne kept talking about! You even recognized the face in a few of the photos from Papyrus’s cooking channel on youtube. You followed them back, laughing a bit at their username again (@get_frisky_withit).

 

[ Now, though, it was time to get back to work.  ](https://youtu.be/QOAD58HCB-c)

 

Balduf Grek was a hard guy to get research on, but after expending every possible avenue of thought you had managed to find out the basics. Some info had already been given to you so you were aware that his specialization was enchanting and what his stats were. Through further research you found that he worked as a magic officer...what branch you had no idea, but you figured he  **had** to do some kind of physical work! He was kind of built for an older dude of around 40. 

 

Thinking on it, you were pretty certain he’d be using the optional wand issues by the Council for the tourney...but anything past that, well, you really didn’t know.

 

Wands are completely optional for mages, definitely a preference thing that depended on where you were taught and also what magic you were using. The idea is that having something to grasp and a ‘point’ to focus your energies on can make magic easier to cast and control. Mage officers always used a wand because it recorded what spells they had used on duty, it was actually illegal for them to cast without using the wand.

 

You tried to watch his match for ideas of what to expect, but to be perfectly honest he had barely used any magic at all. He had announced that he would be using earth, but then spent most of the fight physically attacking the opponent and only using occasional rocks and pebbles to deflect his opponents attacks. He didn’t actually seem to be good at earth-type magic...so surely he wouldn’t be using it again. The back of your brain kept saying ‘ _ it has to be enchanting, what else could it possibly be? It’s his specialization!’  _ but you struggled. 

 

For enchanting...well what could be the possibilities? It would have to be something that would be used to  _ harm _ you and you just couldn’t wrap your head around that. How could this possibly be used as an offensive magic!? Ugh...god, you hated enchanting now for a  _ different  _ reason! You were struggling to see how he could use enchanting in a fight at all unless he enchanted a wand...after that it you were clueless. This was giving you a headache...

 

Time to break from that and solve the other issue,  **your** magic for the fight

 

The field for this time was waterless. You had seen the possible field types that would have worked in your favor: marsh-like areas with humidity, playing fields where the thin water over the crowd slowed movement, areas with rain. 

 

But no, this time you were getting a sweltering savannah-like field. Just your luck. Grass up to your waist and so dry you wouldn't be able to get water anywhere...except for maybe your spit or your sweat...gross

 

You rubbed your head and tried to think. Elemental magic, like all magic, had rules. That being said, they could be broken and bent but at the expense of  **more** MP being used and the possibility of it not working if you weren't good at it. Lighting, Fire, Earth and Air elements were ‘easier’ in that what was needed to form them was almost always readily available unless you were in a vacuum or the floor was a metal stronger than you. Water was more demanding, and thus it was used less often than earth or fire (air and lighting were the least popular as they were the most difficult to control). 

 

Theoretically you could try and “summon” water, but to practice and control that before the deadline…???? Yea that wasn’t happening, you didn’t trust yourself to get anywhere with it.

 

So what else could you do? You didn’t think doing barriers again was a good idea, that trick had already been pulled so he would be expecting it and you would be extremely unlikely to get a hit in. He was a trained magi officer, and you were willing to bet he likely had more focus than your first opponent. You refused to use ice magic and told yourself that the temperate wasn’t right for it anyway. Illusion...well if you had to, you could you supposed. But as a officer you could probably bet on him having taken some kind of resistance training,  and even if he hadn’t you weren't sure if you wanted to give up the gun on that just yet. 

 

This Tourney involved a lot of strategy for someone like you. You KNEW you weren’t best at magic, you simply didn't have the same training as others. You were fighting just to be on equal footing with people who were born with better magic, born with the money to train in it, born with opportunities and knowledge. 

 

Every step forward required deep thinking, a careful show of your hand. This was only part 2 of the tourney after all….you’d still have one fight in part 3 as well multiple in part 4...

 

Once the competition was eliminated to 13 mages (12 if the solo fighter hadn’t passed their ‘special test’ in part 3) fights were then ordered by level of skill to see who the ‘number 1’ currently was. The magic council has a secret scoring system to determine a ‘grade’ for every competitor.  People could only speculate what it consisted of (Style? Reaction time? The amount of spells? Or the quality? Creative uses of magic?) 

 

The bottom ranking 2 would fight against one another, whoever won would then challenge the next highest opponent and so on. It was a chance for ‘redemption’ and to make it into that Top 7. The last 11 (or 12, again depending on how the ‘special test’ in part 3 went) fights were the tensest. The first few 4 or 5 fights especially since the defeated would have gotten so close, yet hadn’t made it into the top positions. After those, competitors win or lose guaranteed a place on the stage since they had gotten into the ranking of 7. 

 

Personally you didn't care about being number 1, you just wanted to get as close to the top 7 as possible. Even the 8th - 13 places got ‘condolence’ prizes and the exposure would be pretty good for you...surely someone somewhere would offer you a job at least if the magic council or government didn't. Maybe,  _ maybe _ if you were lucky you could snag 7th place but you doubted you’d managed to get above that.

 

Anyway…In short, this was only the 2nd fight. You had a ways to go. 

 

You sighed and rubbed your chin thoughtfully. Water was obviously what you needed to use….fire (the only other elemental you had a bit of practice with) might be be easy to cast but on the savannah it could easily backfire with that grass and hurt you as well. There didn’t seem to be any other good options. Water had to work. But what could you do to  _ get  _ water to cast with?

 

You bite your nail, a nervous habit that, despite your trying, never quite goes away. It always comes back when you worry. Not paying attention, you accidently tear part of your fingernail off and make yourself bleed. Ugh, how annoying…the blood dripped down your hand and onto your shirt.

 

Looking at it, you started to piece it together.

 

[You had an idea.](https://youtu.be/fwZMyo65yNE)

 

Blood was made from a variety of different things, but a little over half of it is plasma.

 

_ Which contained water.  _

 

You stood up, pacing around the living room thinking furiously. Could you possibly control the water in blood? You had done something similar, bending water-solute mixes...like a soda. Things that were liquid and contained water but again, weren’t completely water.  Thinking back, you knew meant straining your magic a little more because it contained other substances, but you still managed to cast on it...would blood work the same way? Or could you possibly force a separation from the water in the blood and work with that? Gosh, is any of this even feasible... you'd have to **_make_** **_yourself bleed_** for this to happen….running a hand through your hair you sighed again, this was frustrating.

 

You had no confirmation of the kind of magic your opponent would be using

You were running low on ideas of magic  _ YOU _ could use

What were you supposed to hedge your bets on??? 

 

You glanced down at your finger, where blood still pooled but wasn’t enough to drip.

 

Could give yourself a nasty cut before you went in? Bandage it and then unwrap it for the fight..? But then there lied another issue, you knew that the same magic in place on the field which prevented ‘fatal hits and spells’ also closed physical wounds without healing the Hit Points of your box. 

 

You didn't think hurting yourself would work if the tourney field magic worked like it should.  _ If you wanted to use water magic, you'd need  _ **_blood_ ** _. And if you wanted blood you'd have to get  _ **_hit_ ** _... _ but you'd have to hope that Balduf was using physical based attacks. 

 

So now you were back to square one, what kind of magic would he be using? What could he possibly do with enchanting? Maybe you could look into his job more, find out what division he was in.

 

…

 

[Hours](https://youtu.be/RYBp_dLxFSM)  (and several instances where you were ready to throw your laptop out your 3rd floor window) later, you found what you were looking for.

 

You had gone through 8 divisions individual websites and staff lists before finding him on the 9th. Then you had stalked through every inch of the website, finally ending up in the picture archive the PR staff had set up. It hadn’t been updated in years but after scrolling through dozens of folders and photos you found what you needed:

 

A picture of him training cadets with a weapon in his hand.

 

The hilt of it was a wand, the standard issue plain kind from the mage force. Expanding from the tip was bright light, making the wand three times as long as it would be otherwise.. Near the edge of the tip, the light spanned outwards into two flat blades.

 

A wand turned into a magic axe. 

 

You were astounded...that’s some fuckin high level enchanting right there. It kind of made you terrified. The amount of knowledge and skill to pull that off...likely it was enchanted to his touch so only he could activate the blade (preventing any criminal from using the wand in a scuffle). The blade, being made of magic, was likely relying on the magic imbued into the core of the wand rather than him having to cast a transformation spell every time. Would it even use his MP????  _ Fuck. _ this guy was going to kick your ass wasn’t he? 

 

You eyed the magic blades in particular…would those be a good enough physical force to cut you? They looked sharp enough, but you haven't ever touched one so research was needed.

 

Looking into it, they seemed like a rather tricky thing. It caused HP damaged at a touch, but didn’t seem to cause the body physical harm...unless you _ really  _ **_pushed_ ** into it. The blade would go ‘through’ a physical object, the outside of the blade was thin magic and the further in it would be thicker. Some studies were arguing whether the magic blades are more (or less) dangerous because they didn’t ‘physically’ harm until the blade was practically lodged in someone (which it should never be). 

 

Satisfied, you leaned back against the couch and released the tension, that you hadn’t even realized you had, in your shoulders. While it wasn’t 100%, you had a good feeling he’d be using something similar to that wand in your fight against him. You could try and find a magic blade somewhere in the city to practice with in the meantime...but that would mean buying one from an enchanter’s shop and it’d probably cost a lot. 

 

Your phone dinged, a message from Papyrus in your group chat. Smiling, you unlocked your phone and opened it up. He was complaining about Sans again, a pain for him but a blessing for you. You knew Sans didn’t seem to like you (I mean, the guy didn’t ask for anything with Papyrus and Undyne exchanged numbers with you) but he was funny as hell. Kind of reminded you of the shit you used to pull on your friends back when they were still around. 

 

> [ HUMAN FRIEND!!! LOOK! AT! WHAT! HE’S! DONE!!! THAT NO GOOD BROTHER OF MINE NOW HAS NOT ONE, BUT TWO! T  W O!!! SOCKS IN THE LIVING ROOM! I CANNOT BELIEVE HIM-] 

 

The message went on for quite a bit. You glanced at the attached image and saw the offending socks in question, one on the floor with a sticky note attached to it that read: “PLEASE PUT THIS BACK IN YOUR ROOM - PAPYRUS”. The second one was taped to the wall above it with another sticky note that read “im re-decorating. toent you like it.”  You snorted. 

 

>[ You two make quite the pair, you know that?]

 

>[...WAS THAT WHAT I THINK IT WAS]

 

>[I dunno...did I knock your socks off with it? ;^)]

 

>[ NOOO! MY BROTHER HAS CORRUPTED YOU!]

 

>[I think you’re in between a sock and a hard place right now, Papyrus]

 

>[IM REFUSING TO SPEAK WITH YOU UNTIL YOU STOP THIS BEHAVIOR! YOURE JUST AS BAD AS HE IS]

 

> [ (^3^) <3 ]

 

You must’ve gone too far on the puns because he didn’t respond right away...but after a minute, he replied.

 

> [ <3 ]

 

You knew he couldn’t stay mad at you, even if you were absolutely as terrible with jokes as Sans apparently was. Undyne hadn’t apparently seen your  _ amazing _ jokes yet or she would’ve responded in a similarly offended way as Papyrus had.

 

Undyne...you tapped your chin, now in thought again. Her spears were magic, surely the blades on them would be similar to the blades on an enchanted magic blade? 

 

Could you casually ask her to stab you? 

 

...

 

You were gonna ask her to casually stab you.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> casual stabbing, as often occurs between friends.
> 
>  
> 
> also thank you all soooo much for more than 100 kudos and like almost 800 HITS???? yall....ima get sappy <3\. I havent posted fanfic in like 4 years and have always been self conscious about them. i posted this on a whim and it honestly took me out of a dark place to see how much people enjoy things i create! like, mental health boost +100000 
> 
> definitely aint stopping now, already have more undertale (and other) fics in the works for the future!! Have a good day (or night) wherever you are lovely readers <3 you are appreciated!!!


	8. A Real Handful

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Kicks down your door* Hello,  
> Tis I,  
> bearing sweet gifts of fanfiction-...
> 
> I would say sorry this took so long but I'm not that sorry LOL I was working essentially 2 jobs for the past 6 months (and still kind of am). Also by the time I wanted to write again I forgot the plot of my own story. This is why you write everything down kids! 
> 
> If there's any continuity errors let me know (but there shouldn't be! I reread stuff a few times) 
> 
> Also I'm aware some of the song links have broken in previous chapters due to videos getting muted or taken down, such is the price of YouTube. Essentially I'm thinking of just caving and making 1 giant playlist on either Youtube or Spotify. I guess let me know if anyone is interested? For now I'm just gonna leave things as they are and only put in songs I consider important from now on (ohohohohho that's a hint for future stuff have FUN figuring that out-) 
> 
> ILY ALLLLL~ <3   
> sorry for any mistakes in this.   
> no proofreading, we die as we live: illiterate

You’re standing in the middle of one of the bigger parks in Lumos, though today is kind of cloudy (and the weather is still rather chilly) so there isn’t too many people out and about. You’re rather thankful for that because honestly the less witnesses there were to the bullshit you were about to pull..the better.

 

An excited shout from somewhere behind pulls you out of your distracted thoughts. You tear your eyes from the frisbee players in the distance and turn to greet Undyne who’s running excitedly up.

 

“Yo, hey what’s this about? You were really cryptic in that text - not that I’m against hanging out or anything,” she shoots you a toothy grin. Papyrus and Sans are trailing behind her, Pap carrying a large basket...basket?

 

“we brought snacks.” Sans said in a monotone voice after noticing your stare. 

 

“ **I** BROUGHT SNACKS” Papyrus corrected him, sitting the basket down and defiantly placing a hand on his chest. He then looked around as if checking for lurkers as he leaned close to you, as if to tell a secret. “But the Queen made them.” Quickly he stood up straight once again. “BUT YOU DIDN’T HEAR THAT FROM ME!” 

 

You chuckled, trying to come off as happy when really it was a way to hide your anxiety.  _ The Queen of Monsters made you snacks...she made YOU (and everyone else but you’re included in that!) SNACKS.  _

 

Oh dear lord you’re just not gonna read into that too much. We’re gonna push that thought away and unpack it later k?

 

You turn to Undyne (in the middle of her impromptu muscle-off contest she started with Pap while you were distracted, sans was already laying star-fish on the ground nearby taking a nap) and place a hand on her arm.

 

“Yea I know I was pretty unclear, but you’re actually super important to my training for the next fight.” She immediately perked up and paid attention, her grin growing impossibly larger.

 

“Well why didn’t you lead with that! Hell yea, let’s get started you punk!!” She took a stance as if she was going to tackle you and you nearly screamed. 

 

Hands shaking in front of you as if to pacify her you stuttered out, “WoAH- no-not that kind of, I just need to see your spears.” 

 

Her disappointment was obvious but she wasn’t that upset. She stood normally again and made a ‘hmph’ noise as she summoned one. “Alright, go nuts I guess.”

 

The blue spear manifested in an instant, nearly startling you backwards since it was rather close. She loosened her grip on it but still kept it balance in her hand, you assumed that once she let go of it the magic likely started to wane and it would eventually deteriorate and dissolve. 

 

You leaned in and peered at the tip of the blade, squinting at it. If you really looked, like really  _ really _ looked you could nearly see that gradient of magic you had read about. With her spear the first few centimeters were thinner particles, likely would pass through you without damage if you took it back out quickly enough, but the darker blue that followed it for the rest of the blade was the tell-tale sign that the magic became denser. 

 

And therefore, that’s what you needed to reach. 

 

Curious, you gazed up at her and made eye contact. She had been staring at you curiously. Papyrus was setting up the picnic around sans (who was still sleeping, if you strained you could hear a snore).  Neither were paying attention. 

 

You wanted to do this without freaking anyone out...but you also didn’t think you should voice what you were about to do. I mean, normal people would stop you wouldn’t they? And you needed to test this…

 

“-can I hold it?” you asked

 

“Yea??! I guess…?” she responded, voiced in a way where she got louder the more confused she got. She really had no clue what the fuck you were up to. 

 

You took it from her hand, holding the blade in front of your face for inspection once again before making as if to test the point with your finger tips.

 

“H-hey now thats sharp you really shouldnt-” Undyne started to protest and made as if you lightly grab your arm. 

 

Something in you, the normal part of your brain that holds you back from doing dumb shit, broke then- as it occasionally does. 

 

Typically this is where all your terrible ideas come to fruition (Examples: soda in cereal, trying to eat pasta while in the bath, sticking your pinky finger into a pencil sharpener to see what would happen to your finger-nail) and typically you always regret it.

 

But that part of your brain that stops you from doing those terrible ideas is just dorment, for whatever reason, at the moment. So when Undyne makes as if to take away the spear...you decide to test the magic blade

 

by shoving it entirely into the palm of your left hand. 

 

Immediately the action evokes such a noise from her, it almost makes it worth it. It’s such a strangled, garbled cry-you would laugh, you definitely _ want  _ to laugh, if you weren’t in pain and concentrating right now.

 

She’s yelling, but she doesn't think to grab the spear or get rid of it, she must be panicking. Her yelling attracts Papyrus who, upon seeing the spear just  **shoved** into your hand and your….entirely too calm face, ALSO starts panicking. He’s shaking her, they’re both screaming. They’re kind of in the way but you think you can see Sans in your peripheral vision sitting up from his nap wide-eyed at whatever the fuck mess this is. 

 

Calmly you take out the blade, slowly. It stings a lot but it feels nothing like getting stabbed with a knife. You would say it’s definitely less painful than that, but it also feels tingly and weird; not something you’d willingly want to experience. 

 

There is a very thin cut from where you removed it, a little over an inch long. It only starts bleeding and dripping slightly after you pulled the spear out. On the spear itself is a bit of blood, but not a whole lot. While your two friends are screaming at each other you wordlessly shove the spear into Papyrus’s hands who is now screaming at the blood he sees at the end of it. 

 

You take a deep breath and remember your training from the days before- 

 

Blood has a little more weight to it than water does, and because it contains other things in it...its almost like when a computer is lagging. Everything you do with it will be a little slower than usual due to that added weight and foreign material. Holding your left hand down and to the side you casually make a gripping motion with your right, concentrating on the blood at the tip of the spear. Instead of running down the blade- it stops. All of it gathers together in one little ball and raising your hand a bit higher it floats. 

 

This shuts up both Papyrus and Undyne who are staring in awe, or more likely horror, in what you’re doing. 

 

You absent-mindedly making a twirling motion with your index finger, setting the blood to spin in the air a bit so it doesn’t clot, while checking on your left hand. Some blood has now come out of it as well but you’d like to practice with a bit more. With a grimace you use your right hand to make as if you’re pulling something out of the cut, concentrating deeply.

 

The feeling of pulling blood out of your own body is not pleasant. In all honesty, it kind of makes you squeamish. The other times you tried it you kind of wanted to throw up-but you’ve practiced enough at home that you’re at least familiar with this feeling now. 

 

After a few seconds you stop the motion and make another grip with your hand, forcing the blood that has come out to form a singular unit rather than strings in the air. Pulling blood is rather dangerous since you can very easily pull far too much and leave yourself faint (you should know, you had some close calls the other day). You combine this 2nd with the 1st, a now decent sized, maybe around the size of your fist if not just a big smaller, crimson orb of fluid just gently spinning. 

 

You press your left hand closed and focus, incantation on your lips but not spoken aloud, to heal the wound and upon opening your hand again-it’s gone. 

 

You look up and meet the eyes of the two monsters who, while slack jawed and speechless, you can tell think you’re absolutely nuts. 

 

You open your mouth, close it, and open it again. There really isn’t a good way to say this. You  _ do _ indeed look like a fucking crazy person. 

 

…

 

Oh well, you push through it to attempt to explain.

 

“In the next fight I’m 85% sure my opponent will use a magic blade similar to that,” you point at the one, thats now becoming transparent as it loses form, in Papyrus’s hands. “I’ll be doing water magic...but the arena has no water-”

 

“so you’re using your own blood as a substitute, and you wanted to know if a magic blade could draw it or not.” Sans finished for you.

 

You looked at him in surprise before nodding earnestly. You did NOT see him stand up OR get this close to you, but here he was. It was kind of jarring.

 

 His eyes weren't on you, rather, they were focused on the orb you still had twirling in the air. His hand was on his chin as if in thought. You seriously could not get a read on this guy. 

 

“Punk...what the actual fuck.” Undyne said very quietly,  _ scary _ quiet. She paused for a second before taking a deep breath.

 

“THAT IS SO FUCKIN METAL!!?!?!?!!” She yelled and started punching the air around you excitedly while yelling other things about how cool the fight was gonna be (and also not to scare her like that again or she would put you in the hospital for  **real** ).

 

Papyrus looked relieved after seeing the wound gone from your hand but still chastised you, rather like a mother-figure you noted, for doing something so dangerous. And after he was done he squealed about how cool, and also disgusting but mostly cool, your magic was. 

 

You laughed it all off, glad that it worked out well. 

 

You showed them some of the stuff you had been working on and explained some of your gained knowledge on the subject (what you had theorized, what you had tested, and your results so far). You loved explaining and teaching about things, and they seemingly loved to listen about human magic.

 

In fact all  _ three  _ of them paid rapt attention to you as you demonstrated and explained. In the back of your head you thought this was possibly the longest time sans had ever looked at you or talked with you in fact. He was the one asking all the questions, and answering the other two’s on basic human biology when that came up. You seriously didn’t expect him to be so...knowledgeable? But here he was. He was even making minimal puns! (still a few here and there but like  _70%_   less than usual)

 

You were actually struggling to maintain eye contact with him as you spoke. Not that it was new, prolonged eye contact often made you anxious. With him, though, it felt more as if...he still intimidated you. For whatever reason, he gave you goosebumps. He was the guy who you were worried about annoying or pissing off...you couldn’t imagine doing either to Papyrus or Undyne even if you were trying to, they were rather easy going. Though, it wasn’t as if he  _ wasn’t _ easy going it was-well it was hard to explain. In another sense, he was also like the “friend of a friend”. You really didn’t know him at all, and you were afraid upsetting him would terminate your friendship with everyone else. And to be quite honest it felt as if that easy-going persona he exuded was just that: a persona. That sense of casual, relaxedness he held about him was actually pretty intimidating to you.

 

Maybe more than anything else…all of these feelings were likely because you were scared he didn’t like you. And you  _ desperately _ wanted to be liked. Even if you were never going to be best friends you just wanted to have something solid instead of wondering what his thoughts on you were all the time.

 

And just for these few minutes...it felt like you were making a connection. It felt like maybe you were finally getting to know him, talk to him... 

 

You had already become fast friends with Undyne and Papyrus, and maybe this was the beginning of a friendship for you and Sans. 

 

You certainly hoped so.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some Housekeeping Stuff:
> 
> I'm absolutely floored this has so much love! You have no idea what that means to me. I've said this before but if anyone has ANY fan works (whether its a music playlist of stuff that reminds you of this, art, side stories, ect.) please let me know and I'll link it! I want to give you the attention u deserve!!! + I will love u for lifeee. 
> 
> I have a tumblr also which doesn't have a lot on it but if I do art for any stories, it ends up there. https://ifyouwereabug.tumblr.com/ 
> 
> Lastly: I used to reply to every comment and I'm gonna be more sporadic about it. I read and love ALL of the comments I get so pls don't think that if I don't reply it means i didn't see or don't care (cuz i do care!!! Too much!!) Im just very bad about knowing what to say sometimes LOL plus with me replying it looks like this fic has 2x the number of comments it actually does so i fucked up the numbers like a dumboooo. Anyway TL;DR - Im not replying to every comment just a few! Pls do not be sad <3 
> 
> like all my fics this has SPORADIC UPDATES so even if its been a while don't give up hope! It will happen,,,,,eventually,,,, but that also doesn't mean anytime soon lollll


	9. Commemoration

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for such kind comments! I'm on a tiny break from work rn and already have so much typed up the next few chapters may come out a bit faster than you know, a 6 months wait (lol cant say that wont happen again though).
> 
> This chapter is a bit different since its ~background for our reader~ because the next few chapters are going to be VERY story heavy and...angst? sad? DRAMA heavy.
> 
> slight spoilers in the end note as i explain some things about this chapter!
> 
> Song: Silent Hill 3 OST - Letter, From The Lost Days
> 
> trigger warning for this chapter: suicide attempt, pill overdose

[The year is 200X.](https://youtu.be/5SBY_fUpmnQ) You’re young. Too young, likely, for the thoughts that course through your head on a daily basis. 

 

There are many things about yourself you never questioned. Your “normal” was living with your father’s grandparents, seeing your father less and less as you grew older and, as far as they were concerned, you never had a mother.

 

Ever.

 

You really didn’t know anything about her. You were too young when she had passed and she had, supposedly, been very secretive about herself. As you grew older you thought you heard your father and grandmother speak of her as if she was a mage, one of those “horrid mages”, but never knew for certain. For whatever reason, every memory you had with her was wiped perfectly clean - almost unnaturally so. The doctors claimed, when you were extremely young, that this was due to trauma. You couldn't imagine why.

 

When your father and his parents took you in as a toddler you all played as a happy family, and it worked...until you were old enough to understand the meaning behind seemingly kind words and the inner workings of family politics. Home often began to feel less safe, less like a home. You had nowhere else to go. Coming home, staying there, felt like walking deliberately into a thorned rose bush. You would take the stings if it meant being somewhere familiar and nicer than any other you could find - protection against the ‘other horrors’ which would never come in.

 

Nothing could ever change the fact that you were your mother's daughter, no soap or water could ever wash that fact away. As much as they dressed you up, as much as they filled your heads with thoughts they constructed, as much as they tried to ignore, hide or change it - you were. The ‘taint’ was there. And it seemed as if the older you got the more angry they were about it. And the older you got the more you needed to be punished for it.

 

They never laid a hand on you, you could attest to that, but they certainly didn’t need to. Words can hurt far worse, sting far longer, and, in your personal opinion, were less like to believed by others. Even now you found yourself doubting if what you went through was verbal and emotional abuse. 

 

It took many years before you told even your closest friends and you’d always have a thought in the back of your mind that they didn’t fully believe you. In your darkest nights you felt angry at them, at your family, at everyone for letting such obvious abuses happen to you. Angry even at yourself for never ending them, never defending yourself. But on other days when the loneliness hit, when you remember the fond feelings and the desire to have your family back, to go back to a few golden years when you were far younger,  to have a relationship that wasn't what it was...what it was probably always doomed to be, you were no longer so sure. You no longer believed even yourself.

 

It’s hard to describe the feeling of inadequacy you feel from being starkly different. The black sheep of the family, blamed for sticking out like a sore thumb when you did nothing but live and be exactly what you knew how to be. You cannot conform, no matter how hard you try. Somethings wrong with you. Why wouldn’t you be normal. Why couldn’t you? 

 

Everything about you was just wrong in some way or another:

 

_You we’re too fat, you were unattractive, you dressed like a slut, your personality wasn’t good enough, you were too smart for your own good, you were hard to love, you were spoiled, you were unsociable, your hair was too ratty, you weren’t nice enough, you were too sympathetic, you were lazy, you were ungrateful, you were stupid, you were-_

 

They were often contradictions, it really didn’t matter what you did because someone would find issue with it. Sometimes you stopped eating, sometimes you stopped going outside, sometimes you worked yourself all night and day without breaks, sometimes you dressed over-conservatively out of fear, other times you made yourself nice for attention you didn’t even want but felt forced to seek. You felt forced to change yourself and it hurt worse when you struggled and just _couldn’t_ . You forced yourself to be nice to those who had hurt you, you had tried to adopt your family's form of cruelty towards others, you tried you tried **you tried.**

 

Anxiety ruled your life then, and continues to do so now. Stress formed every part of your being and it took years, _years,_ before you realized what a panic attack was and just how often you had experienced them.  You feel foreign and alien in your own skin, in your own body, in your own life. 

 

You have one sided fights with your family that leave you crying. You don’t know why you’re being punished, or why you’re getting yelled at, but you are. You walk on eggshells everywhere you go: staying in your room and doing nothing could just as easily get you into trouble as trying to go out and help or be sociable. You grow fearful of visiting friends especially because every time, without fail, there will be consequences. Even offers of gifts and presents, of nice things you think you’ve deserved or earned, will be held over your head as means of guilt in one way or another. 

 

Everything you do is judged, like some odd kind of dance where you only know half the steps. You were never good at interacting with others, not even your own family, not even the people you genuinely loved. They made you anxious. You couldn’t look people in the eyes for years. People you lived with felt like strangers. It filled your stomach with such a **bad** feeling to be forced into a conversation sometimes, and at others it felt like you didn’t even know how to be human - how does one even _have_ conversation? There was no scientific way to learn it, you had tried. You memorized facial cues, you had memorized common phrases, picked up on ‘unspoken meanings’; it had taken years. You still weren’t always very good at it. You’re blamed still for not trying hard enough. The thought of family holidays makes you physically ill. For all your learning it felt like taking two steps forward and three steps back - it would never be enough. 

 

More than anything else, you know the intimate, and disturbing, feeling of two beings who speak the same language yet cannot understand each others words - who cannot begin to understand each other, or maybe who refuse to. It felt like no matter how hard you tried sometimes, even on a daily basis with no one inherently trying to belittle or punish you, there was simply no effort and no connection on the other end. Sometimes it felt like this fact, above all others, hurt most of all. 

 

Sometimes you felt jealous of your own family pets at the very obvious, undeniable love they were shown. Yours always felt like there was strings attached. There’s some sort of sickly-sweet essence that hangs around the words, _“but you know I love you._ ” You don’t feel it. On hard nights it feels more like a curse than a blessing. It was perfectly designed to make you feel guilty about being upset, and it worked. 

 

Families are hard;

 

The older you got, the more they hurt. 

 

The older you got, the less you understand them, and the less they tolerate you. 

 

The older you got the more everyone _waited_ for you to fuck up - as if they only needed an excuse to point at you and say that you turned out _just like her,_ the most vilified women you had spawned from. 

 

And everything stings, but you can’t stop the hurt - to stop it, to defend yourself from the blows, would only serve to make things worse. But what is perhaps truly worse is this carnal feeling, like a fever deep inside your brain: to live convinced something must be inherently wrong with you, that you will perhaps never know what, only to have those close to you deny it so fervently, (since to have something wrong with you would speak of their own failures). 

 

You cannot connect with others. They will never understand you. You will always be alone. These are just realities of life. 

 

 _You will never get a happy family_ , you never even had a chance for it.

 

You would often daydream of running away with nowhere to run to, of knowing fully well you had it starkly better than others (and perhaps still do) yet that didn’t lessen the pain. You want to grow up and move on, hide away and perhaps never see them again - cut your losses. Yet to do so would hurt just as must as to stay. The relationship feels parasitic. 

 

Every fight, every negative connotation that’s associated and every hurt you've buried deep comes attached with every good day, every happy memory and the idea that tomorrow or the day after won’t be as bad - that if you can get back to that “tentative” normal perhaps things would be ok. 

 

But tonight you are not considering tomorrow. 

 

Tonight is the Night, the only Night where you’ll be home alone for possibly months. And tonight is your only chance. The suitcase and backpack have been packed under your bed for weeks, just waiting for this exact chance. 

 

At the top of the stairs you stood, looking down at the front door and trying, desperately, to steel yourself to finally leave. You convince yourself you need to. You tell yourself if you don’t…

 

-A news alert from the living room TV draws your attention, the newscaster interrupting your thoughts entirely. 

 

You wander downstairs to the parlor and stand in front of it, eyes wary. You had a bad feeling about the urgency, and you were right.

 

It’s a broadcast about a 13 year old runaway who had been found dead by the side of the road on the other side of the city - the poorer side. You sit down on the floor, hard. The picture is gruesome and she looks so much like you that whatever thoughts had been in your head vanish in an instant. You were a fool for thinking you could survive by running, that somehow you’d make it. There’s no place out there for you. 

 

You choke out a sob and turn the TV off when it cuts to her parents, both looking remorseful (but not crying) as they sit in for an interview. You didn’t want to hear whatever it was they had to say. 

 

Wandering, you end up in the upstairs bathroom, staring at yourself hard in the mirror. Something deep and dark within you had been holding onto this _fantasy_ of running away, of finding some other family to live with, or even just finding somewhere where you could be happy by yourself. Without that little fantasy...what did you have to keep you going? It didn’t feel as if you would ever have that life, it didn’t feel like you could survive long enough to see it. 

 

It’s not as if you really wanted to die, but you really didn’t want to exist either. 

 

You could no longer look yourself in the eyes. You opened the cabinet and grabbed the sleeping pills grandma liked to take. The special kind - extra strength prescription. She had just refilled them. 

 

Full to the top. More than enough so that you wouldn’t wake up. 

 

The plastic felt cold in your hands; You could hear the pills shake slightly as you tried to hold the bottle steady, staring at them hard and unwavering until tears filled your eyes. You were so scared, so scared and tired. You didn’t know if you wanted this. You couldn’t say for sure you didn’t - a few moments ago you were sure but now looking at them…

 

Closing your eyes and trying to take a breath forced out an unsolicited sob from your lips. Your other hand gripped the bathroom counter and you stared into the sink. Thinking on death had given you chills, made your blood go cold.

 

You blinked trying to clear your thoughts, and after a while you noticed that you could see your own breath, puffs of smoke as you calmed down. You blinked a few more times. Ice was slowly forming in the sink - crawling over the surface. You stared at your hand.

 

Your hand was encased in ice, now attached to the counter and forcing more ice to form. You were strangely calm. You turned to the other hand. It too had frosted the pill bottle.

 

You relaxed the tension in your hands and the ice receded, leaving only a few wet or damp spots where it once had been. When your eyes arose to meet the mirror once again, you felt starkly different than you had just a few moments prior. And for just a moment, for just a second, you felt as if you could see your mother standing just behind you,

 

with her arms enclosed around your shoulders, leaning down with her cheek beside yours and a twinkle in her eyes. 

 

And it was enough to change your mind.

 

You put the pill bottle back where it had come from. You unpacked your things. You laid in your bed with the lights out and stared at your hands. You had remembered her face. 

 

And over the next years of your life you would remember other bits and pieces of those few years you held with your mother - from birth, until they finally took you away.

 

Both the good memories

 

and the ones you would give anything to forget again.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter was based a lot of my own experiences and then twisted a bit more to fit into story canon - this was something i always had in mind for the reader's background but wasn't sure how much I would dive into until v recently where I realized it would fit nicely here before the coming chapters. 
> 
> I really wanna stress that while she was chiefly focusing on the bad here (because this is you know The Night where she was gonna do something upsetting) that doesn't mean she doesn't love (for better or worse) or not enjoy being with her family. I wanted to make it...complicated. Because families are complicated. She can't fully hate or forgive them for everything they've done. Without them she suffers as much as she would with them. It hurts either way. 
> 
> Also I want to clarify that while the reader isn't formerly diagnosed with anything (and you can make your own head canons on this if you want! I dont mind!) "magic'' and her mother isnt the only thing that made her feel different and a "black sheep" of the family - she struggles extremely socially and it's something she's gotten better with but can still have issue with! They didn't know she had magic until at some point /after/ this flashback, so their negativity isn't due to that (it really is just because of her mom and her social inability)
> 
> its v personal to me to include this stuff since this whole fanfic is pretty much a vent for me and i have the same issue LOL as for what "makes" her different and not very good socially...she doesn't know! I don't either! Could be a lot of things! I don't really feel like it needs a specific explanation either.
> 
> In the words of Princess Bubblegum: "People get built different. We don't need to figure it out, we just need to respect it."


	10. The Ice In Your Veins

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> henlo yes you get 2 chapters in one night because im EXCITED *vibrates* ive been waiting to post this for like 9 months
> 
> Song: FFXIV OST - Footsteps in the Snow (Shiva Phase 1)

That afternoon had been wonderful - after teaching about the finer points of your...unusual technique you all had a lovely picnic together with the snacks the Queen, Toriel, had prepared for you.

 

The sandwiches were all cut in hearts and stars, and the other fruits and veggies that accompanied them had gotten the same treatment. She even packed some fruit drink you had never heard of (must’ve been a monster drink or speciality, you assumed) that tasted like all of your favorite fruits chilled and dipped in sugar. 

 

It was all very cute, but to be honest Sans and Undyne wolfed down so much that you ended up only getting a few bits of things. It was just as well, you didn’t mind at all and you didn’t feel too terribly hungry.

 

Once the sun started setting and the evening chill began to get stronger you all decided to walk home. Since it turns out you live in nearby areas you all walked together, no point in splitting up if you’re all going the same way right? You listened to Papyrus and Undyne’s lengthy conversation on their new workout regime...something about leg day versus arm day. You kind of got lost trying to follow their logic quite honestly, though to be fair...you are not a very active person. 

 

“you got any idea what they’re talking about.” sans asked you quietly, walking beside you while his eyes continued to stare dead ahead. He was amusedly watching Papyrus as he and Undyne, now avidly shouting much to the horror of the few other people on the other side of the street, walked in front. 

 

“Nah, I’m as dumb as a...dumbbell,” you snickered at yourself, god lord that was a terrible attempt. You kind of hated yourself for saying it. He gave a fake groan beside you. 

 

“leave it to the profreshionals, kiddio. puns might be a bit too hard for you to _workout.”_ Now it was your turn to groan as his shit-eating grin grew bigger.  

 

You walked in silence, only the noise of Undyne’s screeching and Pap’s “Nehehe!”s filling the air until you hit a fork in the alley you had all found yourselves in. Undyne parted from the group with a punch to your shoulder, your _tender, bruising shoulder,_ to take the opposite path as you three-her home with Aphys was a bit away from the rest of their friend group. 

 

Papyrus now starts chastising sans for his posture with sans dodging all his complaints with “uhuh” and “sure” while throwing in some puns (much to Papyrus’s dismay).

 

Eventually the alley opens to a wider, open space-possibly a small courtyard for the buildings surrounding you on all sides. You come closer to the center of the square courtyard, seeing that the buildings are oddly dark and old (abandoned perhaps?) and that there are a few darkened alleys connected here like yours was. Something in you stirs, something about this just isn’t quite right. You feel like you’re being watched. 

 

Sans and Papyrus don’t stop their conversation, you’re beginning to lag behind as you stop for a moment and really look around you. And then you see her - 

 

Noir

 

She pushes off from the building she had been leaning up against, the shadows and placement just-so...you wouldn’t have been able to see her at all unless you stopped and turned around like this.

 

Papyrus and Sans eventually stop walking when they no longer hear your footsteps. When they turn and see Noir both go quiet, Papyrus making as if to move closer to you but Sans throws his arm out to catch him. 

 

Your attention is entirely on her - her stance is almost like… a predator. You’re the prey. And now that you’re in her sights…

 

She scoffs as you look her up and down, trying to figure out what she’s even doing here. “Yea, long time no see.” Her face then hardens as she takes a few steps forward and you visibly stiffen, but don’t move. Moving would be a sign of weakness. 

 

“I want a rematch.” She states plainly, now standing across from you making it so you’re both an even distance from each other as well as the buildings. As your eyes roam the courtyard you realize why she waited here, it’s perfect for a small sparring arena. They narrow. 

 

“Noir, I don’t have a reason to fight you-I’m just, I’m gonna go home.” You tried your best to be assertive but your voice still shook when you first started talking. She noticed. She grinned. 

 

“Well I’m sorry to hear that, it means I’m going to have to do this the hard way.”  

 

You heard Papyrus whisper worriedly to Sans and before you could even open your mouth she raised a hand and **forced** your soul out. It felt like having the wind kicked out of you, absolutely unexpected.

 

She reached into her pants pocket and took out a lens, hooking it on her ear before flipping it over her left eye.

 

“Now, let’s do a little soul searching shall we?” Your mind couldn’t comprehend what exactly was happening, still winded from your soul getting forcefully pulled out, but when she said _soul search_ you tensed up immediately. 

 

“You wouldn’t-” you hissed at her.

 

“I am.” She responded coldly, using her right hand to make a ‘come hither’ motion - it brought you nearly to your knees. 

 

You struggled to stand upright, forcing your head up to see what she was doing. A large black box, similar to the kind used in the tourney, had appeared slightly in front of you, near your side. The numbers and words were constantly rushing through, never stopping. It took a second before you started recognizing some of them:

 

**Hours slept, Tears shed, Wishes made, Vitality levels, Intelligence modifier-**

 

Your stats, the very culmination of your being that lay within your soul. And this information was now being broadcast very loudly to the girl with a grudge standing across from you. 

 

These were not your typical stats - the regular stat menu only listed a bare outline of details primarily for health reasons (HP and Defense chiefly) and it was really only conjured at special, and highly regulated, doctor's appointments. Even that little amount of information was seen as precious and only rarely released (the tourney itself got special permission to put stats in competitors files, which could even be opted out of as well).

 

 **_These_ ** stats, however, were actually buried so deep they were near impossible to dig out: you couldn't conjure them up yourself. _Not even if you had wanted to._ This was like having your clothes ripped off in public, having a stranger scrutinize your every detail. It was humiliating. It was terrifying. 

 

She must’ve made some black magic market deal for forbidden, **expensive** intrusive magic. Who would even sink that low, spend that amount of riches and risk on something like this? She has to be fuckin obssessed-You wanted to curse her out but the words caught in your throat. Whatever it was she had done to you, you were incapable of pushing your soul back in your chest or even moving much at all. You tried not to look at the box anymore, you didn’t want to see what was there.

 

“My, this looks interesting-” she leaned in and narrowed her eyes, the flick of her finger halted the text as she focused in on a stat in particular. You followed her eyes,fully falling for it and not being able to help it - then quickly averted them once again. You wish you hadn’t looked. 

 

“Attack at 50?” she laughed darkly. The stat looked partially corrupted, weird shapes and blocks, but readable. As if something had tried to hide it but the mirage...or corruption, was fading off.

 

“I wonder why you wouldn’t want that in your official files...well I suppose it wouldn’t look good next to your EXP count, would it?” Her smile grew ever larger, the moon behind you just barely illuminating her face. You swallowed hard and forced yourself to maintain eye contact with her, trying to keep yourself from shaking. You knew from your glance that it was also corrupted but readable. You **really** wish you hadn’t looked. 

 

**_“Your LV - you’ve almost certainly killed someone, haven’t you?”_ **

 

You said nothing. You couldn’t say anything even if you wanted to, at this point you might burst into tears if you did anything other than concentrate on staring at her. 

 

“Well either way, I should think I deserve a far better fight than the one you gave me,” she practically snarled at the end, snapping up her hand and causing the horrid box to vanish and her grip on you to release. You took a deep breath. 

 

“And if you don’t give me the fight I want, I’ll let the tourney know exactly what you’ve done.” A glint in her eyes, it’s a promise as much as it is a threat.  

 

“I don’t care, I’m not fighting you.” you said quietly, numbly. You may as well give up on everything now because with just one Soul Search your life has come crashing down. 

 

Her eyes narrowed. She didn’t like that answer. Her eyes turned from you to the two skeletons still standing quietly at a distance behind you. 

 

“Fine. Then if you don’t fight me, you’ll be forfeiting their lives.” She puts her hand over her arm runes, beginning the transformation. 

 

You tense, hair rising as the anger in you grows. “You aren’t going to lay a fucking hand on them, you _cheap-ass looking edgelord_.” With a hand thrown out, palm facing your friends you surround them in a barrier while keeping a watchful eye on her.

 

“You’re supposed to be smart, aren’t you? Tell me- do you think, even if you all left here right now, that they would be safe without you there and your stupid defense magic?” Her transformation was finished and she lifted the arm, as if admiring her work. This time it was as if someone had sewn a beast’s arm onto her - giant claws flexing as she eyed you. 

 

You conceded - she was right. You knew she was from a wealthy and powerful family, and while you could almost certainly protect them from whatever bullshit she decided to throw at you right now...once you parted ways there was no telling who or want she would sic on them. Your hand closed, barrier dropping.

 

“Good girl,” Noir spoke condescendingly. “Now I don’t want any of that bullshit fake magic I’ve been seeing you use,” she crouched low, beast arm rising up. The shadow she cast behind her on the wall was tall and inhuman. Shivers went down your spine.

 

“I want your **true** magic, and you can’t hide it from me anymore.” Then she called your name in a mocking voice, as if making fun of it, before laughing once again and running towards you at full tilt. 

_True magic-_

 

Your hands are shaking, you can’t pretend as if you don’t know what she means but you also want to do anything _other_ than that. As she swipes at you, attempting to cut you with the massive claws on her transfigured arm you dodge continually back, until you realize that’s where Papyrus and Sans are. You duck under the next one and run underneath the arm to the other side, spinning to face her as well as them. You make eye contact with each of them, they farther back than they were before to get out of the fighting. 

 

“Go! I’ll be fine!” You shouted, desperate to get them to leave. You’d actually feel better if they left-

 

Noir wasn’t giving you the luxury of lingering thoughts, she pounced and you just narrowly dodged out of the way, now focusing all your energy on her.

 

“Come ON you fucking COWARD!” She screamed at you, almost unhinged as she swiped at you in quick succession. You didn’t have enough stamina to keep this up. 

 

[You took a deep breath.](https://youtu.be/KhDldATuFQ4) You had to do this. You just hoped the picnic restored your MP-

 

As Noir briefly caught her breath, about to yell again in frustration, you slowly let yours out-frost gathering at the tips of your fingers. The chill in the air grew as fat snowflakes began to fall on you both as you concentrated - the conditions were perfect for you right now.

 

Quickly you kicked out your right leg in the air and a dull ice spike shuttered out of the ground just as fast, pointing angled at her position, causing her to jump back to avoid touching it. It wasn’t meant to actually maim - but it was a warning of what she had gotten herself into and what you were capable of. You hoped it would be enough to dissuade her further but it had the opposite effect: it encouraged her, laughter pooling out of her once again like a madwoman as she tried another rapid dash towards you. 

 

You took a sharp intake of breath and focused, bringing both your arms up straight. A thin ice wall was quickly formed between the two of you as you quickly stepped back. It only momentarily halted her - with three quick kicks and a punch of the beast arm she was through (winded, but through).

 

A grimace on your face and trying to think quickly to keep her at bay, you shot two long ice-bolts into the air and as they came back down, spun them around using the momentum they gained and flung them at her - aiming for the ground at her destination rather than her herself. They worked and stopped her in her tracks, making her realize they _could have_ impaled her feet to the ground where she stood, but she pushed them aside from where they stuck out of the ground - determined to move forward with than insane grin plastered on her face.

 

You on the other hand were determined to end this without bloodshed.

 

She grew close and you attempted bait and dodge away so that she would be close to the wall of the building your back was against. She attempted, instead of a swipe, to shove her claws directly into your chest. You ducked, barely, and they were embedded into the brick and mortar behind you. Quickly you froze her feet into place as she stood with her human hand attempting to free the other. By the time she looked down you tried to repeat the action and encase her arm in ice against the wall. 

 

It seemed to be working - you backed away slowly taking deep gulps of air. You had plenty of magic but you really didn’t think you could outmatch her for stamina or endurance. If you had to keep playing this game of ‘chicken’ to try and scare her to quit...you were afraid not of losing to her, but of her _actually killing you_ . Spending the last few days drawing blood and practicing certainly were not helping and you realized, far too late, a dizziness that was beginning to overcome you slowly. You had never donated blood before, but you realized quite stupidly why you always heard about the snacks and fluids they give when you do- and also realized how _extremely little_  you have had of both of those in the last 24 hours. Of all the bad luck-you might have been fine if you had just made it home instead of getting into this death match. 

 

This was no longer about the tourney, this was about surviving. What else could you do? **You** didn’t want to kill or maim **her** , and you didn’t want her to come after all the people you knew and held dear for not giving her a _‘proper’_ fight. If you passed out here would she just kill you? Or would she _accidently_ kill you, not realizing you were on the verge of fainting? Would she go after Pap and Sans either way? Not to mention you were sure that if you managed to get the police involved her rich ass family could get her back out quickly enough-

 

While your mind was caught in a desperate loop, looking for a solution while trying to fight away the black at the edges of your vision- **she broke through the ice.** With a roar that shook you to your core she flex and heaved her arm, shattering the ice from the inside. She quickly used it to dispatch the ice at her feet and turned on you, _pissed and_ (as you were convinced) _ready to slaughter you_. 

 

Your breath still hadn’t caught up, you weren’t feeling too hot (ha, you’d laugh if you weren’t in mortal terror). Her slow and steady footsteps ominously approached you. She was no longer quick - she was almost assured of her victory now by that look in her eyes yet she didn’t look satisfied. She did, however, look increasingly cruel.

 

You blinked and her human hand was gripped around your throat, attempting to lift you up higher than her. In shock, you feebly pushed at her hands at your throat with no real thought behind it. As if your body was moving without your brain fully catching up.

 

She slowly began cutting off your air, you were standing on your tip toes to try and get more as she pulled you up, your hands now panicking: _fully realizing how **very much** in danger you were_. You shoved them into her abdomen and, thinking nothing other than wanting her _away from you,_  of wanting her to _let go_ , of _not wanting to die-_

 

You felt an ice spike come out of your left hand, piercing her as you pushed. She let go nearly instantly. 

 

Barely catching yourself, both of your eyes widened: hers in the realization that she had been hit and hit _severely._ She had lost, perhaps you really were the better mage.

 

Yours were widened in alarm. Your dizziness temporarily forgotten as the blood from her wound lay heavy on your hand. You hastily retreated, stumbling back-your mind running and breath catching. _You almost did it again, what the hell was wrong with you?_ The wound was a terrible, deep hole and gash on her side, but she'd live if you stopped the bleeding quickly. She was lucky you hand hadn't caught her in the center of her stomach instead.

 

Your magic had reacted out of instinct and now she stood (barely), just a few feet away. Hand on her side, lightly healing herself to catch the bleeding while the blood on her shirt and pants grew darker as it stained. You clutched at your shirt, at your chest, trying to keep it together. It felt like there were eyes on you. Dozens of eyes. They _knew_. They knew what you did. They were judging your sins. They knew you were a fuck up who almost got her killed- 

 

“Whatever. This doesn't mean shit.” She spat, but  quietly...almost in a whisper, trying to hide whatever pain the wound had given her but not doing a very good job of it. She nearly wavered and stumbled.

 

 _This doesn’t mean shit_ \- She said almost to herself, as if it was a lie she was trying to believe.

 

You had won. She had told herself if you had both gotten a REAL fight together she wouldn't have been kicked out of the games, but with this outcome...you had bruised not only her body, but her pride. She gave you a disgusted look, but once again it almost looked like it wasn't directed at you. Maybe it was for her. She turned away and with her other hand threw down black dust from the pouch at her hip. In a plume of smoke and a crackle of magic, she was gone.

 

You were shaking. You needed to go home. At least no one saw... _no one saw_ you reassured yourself as you felt a presence. There was black at the edge of your vision growing, threatening to overcome you. You fought against it. The eyes were still on you. You turned back behind you where there should've been no one, _trying_ to alleviate the anxiety you felt. There should've been **NO** one. 

and yet there he was.

 

Sans

 

Wide eyed. Hesitant. He looked like he wanted to say something but couldn't find the words. You looked down, you couldn't look at his face. This is how you'd lose your friends wasn't it? Everyone would leave you for their own safety and you couldn't even blame them. You were a murderer. You didn't mean to hurt Noir but you did. You, who had tried so hard at everything, had learned everything you could, yet still couldn't control yourself or your own magic. **God** and things had just started going well for you two…

 

Would they tell? Would your former friends spread the news? No invasive Soul Searching was done for the tournament, this would be news to them. If they didn't kick you out or make a public announcement you were sure all of your fans, your soon to be ex-fans, would make your life hell.

 

You were a fuck up and it'd probably be for the best if everyone just left you alone. You should've just let her win. Shouldn't have even tried to be anything other than nothing

 

What did your family always say? _“We don’t learn magic in this family-of all the things you_ **_had_ ** _to be..”_ Maybe if you had listened and just stopped trying to learn, maybe if you had just settled for that normal, planned out life they had handed to you on a silver platter. They were right, magic led to nothing but hurt, it hurt you it hurt _everyone_ , why would you do this? Why would you-maybe if you tried harder to be normal, maybe if you sucked it up and just lived with everything they threw at you, maybe-

 

Sans had taken a few steps closer while you hugged yourself, staring a hole into the frosty ground as your mind spiraled. The sound of his shuffling pulled you back to the present.

 

You decided to say something, and managed to stutter out: “...d-did Papyrus, uh.. see…”

 

“No. I sent him away when things started looking bad. Told him to go find undyne in case things got bad.” If he was scared of you his voice didn't betray it. The way he was talking...it's like how you talk to a wounded animal: trying not to spook them away. You weren't the injured one, but you certainly were afraid. Maybe he was too. He probably just didn’t want you to hurt him.

 

You let go of the breath you were holding. At least what he said was good news, something to be thankful for in all of this mess. You didn't think you could face Papyrus, innocent Papyrus who thought the world of you.

 

You took a shaky breath, and then another. Your thoughts were getting muddled. Everything seemed kind of far away. You held on.

 

“But you saw.” You whispered after a moment

 

“..but I saw.” he repeated back, quieter than before. Soft. 

 

“...everything?”

 

He didn’t answer, you looked up and now he was facing away from you, nonchalantly. “yea.”

 

You were both silent for a minute, you had no idea what he was thinking but for yourself...you couldn’t even begin to formulate a sentence. Finally, he saved you the trouble. 

 

“it’s not my business. didn’t see anything worth telling.” He said with a shrug. 

 

For a minute everything was quiet - and then, without even realizing, you had tears streaming down your face, sobs barely contained. You felt a pair of arms around you and, brain far too muddled to make any sense of your emotions or thoughts, you hung on tight.

 

You cried until there wasn’t anything left to - and then the world went black.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've actually passed out from blood loss! it wasn't a lot - i was just severely dehydrated. it was probably one of the scariest sensations, i don't recommend it LOL -3/10


	11. Level of ViolencE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Deepression time LOL, 
> 
> I hate this chapter, it was super hard to write but it had to be done. After this we can get back to other, less sad/drama filled plot! 
> 
> sorry that its kind of short
> 
> the theme for this chapter is [ Julia - It Is The Nature Of Dreams To End ]

[This dream haunts you often.](https://youtu.be/roAM0b3o6CU) For as long as you can remember in fact. Before you even fully remembered the event you would often dream of it - all the words and actions muddled as if you were watching it underwater. Back then you would forget everything before you awoke, leaving you with a strange emptiness and wondering what it was you were crying about. 

 

Now you knew. When your abilities for magic awoke within you it in turn gradually awakened memories as well. Not many, though. Just a few. Just the ones of you

 

and Mom.

 

And once you had remembered what the dream was actually about every night spent in it was another night reliving the memory. Every rewind _hurt._ It physically pained you to watch over and over, every time the image getting just a little bit clearer. 

 

So here you are again. 

 

It’s a bright, sunny day but there's still a chill in the air - it must be spring. You can hear birds quietly in the distance. You don’t know for sure how old you are...somewhere between one and two years old. It’s weird looking down at yourself, remembering what you had been thinking in the moment while also retaining what you knew now. Your tiny hands gripped the ruffles of your baby blue dress, grass stains already appearing in the skirt. Vaguely your child mind thinks the dress is itchy, you wished you had actual control over your arms (instead of just watching passively, after all this is a memory) so you could scratch.

 

You’re sitting on the grass outside of a small house in the countryside, rolling hills sprawling out in all directions with a few other cabins in the distance. On the back porch is your Mom’s friend...you don’t remember her name. You struggle to think of it but come to the conclusion that it hasn’t been revealed to you in previous dreams.

 

She’s tall, muscley but overall thin (reminds you a bit of Undyne). She looks young but the dark bags under her eyes make her look older. Her hair is dyed silver and black in a short messy haircut, her black clothes match it rather nicely. You think you would’ve liked to know her, maybe if things we’re different…

 

She’s smiling fondly in your direction but you get the feeling it’s not for you. You follow her line of sight to see who it’s for.

 

Mom is kneeling in front of you. She’s been talking this whole time, trying to get your attention (and failing). Her beautiful long hair blows gently in the breeze and glitters white in the sunlight, far different from your own which was obviously inherited from your Father.

 

Her eyes are your favorite thing about her. So kind and warm, the same color as yours but twice as pretty - they had flecks of so many other colors in there it was like looking into a kaleidoscope. You look into them and you don’t doubt for a single moment how much she loved you. 

 

You, or well you in the dream, begin to play with the sleeves of her shirt that hang down from her outstretched arms. She laughs musically, so happy it nearly hurts to hear, and you can see her friend on the porch chuckle at your antics. 

 

“My darling, please! You are terrible to treat your mother so-” she tutts playfully, her voice laced with so much humor she sounds as if she could burst into laughter again at any moment. 

 

“Nadia, she’s too young. Let’s wait a few more months and we can try again.” The woman on the porch spoke up, still smiling and amused but, apparently, believing her to be on a fool’s errand.

 

Mom - _Nadia_ -  gives her a pointed look before turning back to you, now playing with the grass again. “I was her age when my magic started coming in, it’s better to test now so we know what we’re dealing with rather than have it crop up later...I don’t want her to hurt herself...” She tucks a stand of hair behind your ear, cupping your cheek gently. She turns once again to the other woman.

 

“We come into our magic far earlier than regular mages, far stronger too. My mother told me that when I was young she left the cabin for only a moment, and when she returned with water I had created an entire illusion of the forest within the room where my playpen was. The illusion was so strong it was actually unclear it _was_ in fact an illusion, she thought there was some other magic at play...like maybe nature and plant based growth.She thought someone had broken into the house and stolen me...” She chuckles, smiling fondly at how something so nerve wracking had then become a joke between her and her own mother. She then shakes her head and turns to you once again. 

 

“I don’t know what kind of magic you’ll have, my darling, but I’m sure it will be wonderful.” She coughs then, suddenly and violently, turning away from you. The other woman gets up and makes as if to walk over but she waves her off. She insists quietly she’s fine and turns back to you with a smile with a bit of a weaker voice. 

 

She taps you on the nose before settling into a more comfortable position across from you. You sat facing her, in between her legs, and she gently took hold of your hands. 

 

She puts her thumb in the center of both of your palms, stretching out your fingers. 

 

“Do you feel that tingle in your hands, little one? A fuzzy feeling? That’s your magic. When you use magic you have to grab that feeling,” she gently tickles the palm of your hands, leading you to giggle, before gripping your thumbs. “You grab it and then you push it out! Like throwing a ball, or pushing a door. Think about doing those things...stretch your fingers and push out the magic gently -” Shes curling and uncurling your hand for you to get the idea, then pushing against them gently as an example.

 

You stare at her blankly, blinking before stretching your fingers on your own. You stare at your palms. You, you of all of 2 years, really doesn't understand what any of the words she said mean other than she wants you to do _something._ You watching this, however, know all too well exactly what your Mother meant. It was kind of like sitting in basic math course when you already knew how to do college algebra - it irked you that there was no way to show her how far you’ve come in the present. 

 

While you had stopped paying attention she was taking with the silver hair lady again. 

 

“...seems silly but this is how my mother taught me. If she doesn’t pick it up soon we can try again later, I would just like to catch her _before_ random spells start coming out of her-”

 

She grabs your palms again, stretching them open. 

 

“Good! Exactly like that, darling. Now just _push_ the magic out! Just like pushing a door-”

 

You stare blankly, opening and closing your palms and head slightly tilted. She sighs wistfully, not disappointed but things obviously not going how she planned. You don’t understand at the time but watching the memory as an adult...you can see how tired she is. There are bags under her eyes too, an almost sickly paleness to her skin.

 

You wonder, watching this, if she was stressed. You would imagine she is, the court case going on with your father and his family would have been going on for months at this point. Or...perhaps she was genuinely ill. Your other memories always made it seem like she was rather chronically ill - something always happening or going on and the other woman fussing over her. 

 

“Magic is all about intention...you think of something and you do it, the magic makes it happen! You do what you intended to do. Focus on your goal: _push the magic out._ ”

 

“She’s practically still a baby, Nadia. I really don't think she gonna understand any of that-” Silver haired lady interrupted once again, now actually walking out into the yard with you all. She played it cool and tough but she seemed rather protective of your mother’s health, you absentmindedly wondered (not for the first time) what the nature of their relationship was.

 

You in past however had tuned out, still opening and closing your hands. **Push**. You thought about that. Like her example of pushing a door. You knew how to do that.

 

“I know, but she picks up on things so fast...I thought maybe-”

 

Your mother didn’t realize how accurate she was in that statement. You stretch out your fingers and you could in fact feel the ‘fuzzy feeling’ there, deep under the skin. 

 

Your mother turned her attention back to you, likely as her last try before giving up for the day, and smiled. “I know you can do this, little one. When you understand it, when you know how, just _push_ , but be sure not-”

 

You weren’t paying attention to what, in all likelihood, was probably a warning on safety. “Be sure not to push this way-” or something similar. How unfortunate it was that she had sat in front of you to show you how to stretch your hands, to see your face and eyes she loved so much, rather than sitting behind you. How unfortunate she didn’t move after showing you, likely thinking at this point you were unlikely to do anything.

 

She couldn’t have known, though, what was about to happen. It really was an innocent mistake. Everyone makes mistakes with raising their first child.

 

Hers just happened to be deadly.

 

You pushed, you opened your fingers out and _pushed_ out that fuzzy feeling. Just like she had asked. You only thought of wanting the magic out. You really didn’t think anything of pushing it her direction. 

 

Everything happened very, very quickly. One moment you're staring up at her, her lips moving but you don’t really hear the words. The next, she’s blinking at you confused, blood trailing from the corner of her mouth down her face.

 

She’s calm, far too calm for someone with a shaft of ice sticking directly through the center of her chest. 

 

She smiles at you. There’s tears in her eyes, but they don’t seem like sad ones.

 

 _“I’m so proud of you, little one-”_   You believe her. 

 

It’s really the other woman’s shout that takes you out of the stupor you're in. Your fear must affect the magic because instantly, as you close your hands and bring them to your own chest with tears beginning to form in your own eyes, the shaft is gone. Your mother was now laying on her back, a growing splotch of blood in her chest where the ice had gone through. You aren’t close enough to see if there’s a hole- 

 

The silver haired lady is immediately beside her, cursing and panicking. It looks like she’s attempting to pick her up, likely to take her to the hospital. “You’re going to be fine, I’m not gonna let you-”

 

Your mother raises a hand, slowly as if she barely has any control over the limb anymore. Her hand threads itself in the the other woman’s hair.

 

“It’s ok, it’s too late. I can feel it. Just please...Spencer, please keep her safe. The documents-” she’s gurgling, struggling to speak and her voice is barely a whisper. “They _can’t_ know. The..-rgency plan…” 

 

Spencer threads her fingers with the hand entangled in her hair, holding tight. 

 

“No..I know, I know what to do. I’ll protect her, Nadia, I promise.” 

 

They speak for just a few more moments before Spencer turns to you, face set and not revealing whatever her own emotions are - she's not the one losing a mother. Gently she leads you over. Your mother smiles at you. Blood is still trailing out of her mouth and there’s more pooling slowly underneath her. She searches your face as her eyes begin to look glazed over. 

 

“My darling-...” she whispers quietly. Your vision starts to fade to black. You can see her lips move but you can’t make out the words. Whatever words she had left to say, you don’t hear them. You never do. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i feel like this was hinted enough that its not really that big of a surprise anymore but maybe im wrong! i am the one writing after all LOL hopefully its interesting either way!

**Author's Note:**

> hey! sorry yall, I ended up deleting my own blog and made a separate account so i could follow people back! all the art is getting reposted there (so don't worry!) feel free to bug me on i! - https://ifyouwereabug.tumblr.com/

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Secrets Not So Secret](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17415416) by [ZAQ606](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZAQ606/pseuds/ZAQ606)




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